The VAR Guy

Same story, different week: The VAR Guy is packing his bags for yet another trade show (CompTIA Breakaway). And as usual, our resident blogger has more chatter to share with you but time is short. Here are six channel partner blog entries The VAR Guy and his team didn’t have time to write for the week ending Aug. 6, 2010.

7. Google Winning Mobile Race?: Reports say customers are buying 200,000 Google Android devices per week, leapfrogging weekly iPhone sales. The real road kill here: Windows Mobile has fallen to single-digit market share. Can Windows Phone 7 save the day? Hmmm…

6. Sweet SaaS Success?: NetSuite shares are rising amid stronger quarterly sales — and a stronger revenue forecast — at the SaaS-centric software provider. But how did the overall SaaS and cloud market perform this week? Check back later today when The VAR Guy updates the SaaS 20 Stock Index.

5. Coopetition?: Arrow Electronics’ decision to acquire Shared Technologies — a unified communications and managed services provider — has a few VARs worried. They worry that some distributors plan to become solutions providers. Hmmm… Hasn’t that been the Big Fear for more than a decade?

4. Final Countdown: Cisco Systems is planning some sort of SMB or commercial channel strategy announcement in the next 60 days or so. The VAR Guy has some early details… but he’s still trying to confirm accuracy with the networking giant.

3. Changing Teams: Birger Steen, Microsoft’s VP of Worldwide Small and Medium Business & Distribution, is resigning to become president at virtualization and cloud platform vendor Parallels, according to Mary Jo Foley’s All About Microsoft blog. Why Parallels? The company seems to be on a serious roll with hosting partners.

2. Shaking Hands?: Even as Oracle’s Sun business competes with Dell, HP and IBM, big hardware are still hanging out with Oracle. In fact, Dell, HP and IBM have each signed on to sponsor Oracle OpenWorld (Sept. 19-23, San Francisco). But The VAR Guy is far more intrigued about a different potential relationship. Specifically, keep your eyes on Oracle and Cisco, according to several Cisco partners… Hmmm….

1. Check the Headline: This has been — and continues to be — a top-six list. There is no No. 1 because The VAR Guy is typically out of gas by this time each week.

Thanks for reading.

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