The VAR Guy

Following Mark Hurd’s surprise resignation from Hewlett-Packard, pundits are trying to figure out who will become HP’s next CEO. Apparently, internal and external candidates will be considered. The VAR Guy’s best guess: Now could be the time for HP to tap Ann Livermore (pictured) as CEO. Here are four reasons why Livermore comes to mind for the CEO post.

Cloud computing has plenty of application to fields like telephony, messaging, and even graphics processing. Now the cloud is entering the civics arena with the launch of HeyGov! for San Francisco, a Windows Azure-based SaaS application built by a cloud-centric Microsoft partner. Here’s why HeyGov could be vanguard of cloud moves in municipal government.

Hewlett-Packard Co. said CEO Mark Hurd is stepping down following a sexual-harassment probe that found other violations of company standards, according to the Associated Press.

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.

VMware is the best-known provider of virtualization. But there seems to be growing buzz about Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization (RHEV), which is based on the KVM open source foundation. We’re checking in with both Red Hat and VMware to get their take on the competitive landscape. In this blog entry, I share Red Hat’s perspective. Next time, I’ll be back with VMware’s thoughts. Here’s a look.

Long Island University is giving all incoming freshman free Apple iPads — to keep after graduation — in an effort to help their students learn, succeed and grow with technology. Is this the latest sign of Apple winning more market share on university campuses? Is the iPad really a device that all students need? And does this signal the death of printed textbooks on university campuses? Here’s my perspective.

Cloud computing management solution vendor RightScale has announced that in June 2010 vs. June 2009, their customers used 1000% more cloud solutions. That means they saw more cloud servers in use, cloud servers with more runtime, and deployment on larger cloud servers. It’s a compelling statistic, and one that indicates a larger trend towards SaaS. Here’s the scoop.

If you’ve been on the fence about making the jump to developing on the Microsoft Windows Azure and SQL Azure cloud platforms, then The VAR Guy has some good news for you: Microsoft is giving out one free one month passes to US developers. Here’s the scoop.

Poke around the IT channel and you’ll find quite a few “coaches” who help VARs and MSPs to bolster their businesses. Roughly 30 of those coaches will get together during a private session at CompTIA Breakaway (Aug. 9-12, San Antonio). The big question: How will channel expert Paul Dippell (pictured) organize the agenda? Here are some thoughts.

When I think of virtualization and replication of workloads, I sometimes think of Dolly. No, not the country singer. I mean the other Dolly — the domestic sheep that became the first mammal to be successfully cloned from an adult cell. Why? Because without a smart approach to intelligent workload management, IT staff and solutions providers may need to be cloned as well just to manage these workloads. Here’s the challenge… and the solution.

A few weeks ago at HostingCon, The VAR Guy and MSPmentor heard rumors that The Planet and SoftLayer were planning some sort of merger or business combo. Fast forward to the present, and merger discussions between SoftLayer and The Planet continue, the two hosting providers confirm. A deal is expected to be completed in Q4, 2010. Here are the details.

Systems integrator Autonomic Resources has announced the addition of open-source public cloud tools OpenStack, Zenoss Core, and Enomaly Elastic Computing Platform to its Autonomic Resources Cloud-Platform (ARC-P) portfolio. The infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) products target federal government cloud opportunities. Here are the details.

It’s been roughly two-and-a-half years since Nine Lives Media Inc. launched WorksWithU, the independent guide to Ubuntu. When we started this site we made a few assumptions about how the Ubuntu community and Ubuntu business markets would evolve. How have those assumptions evolved from 2008 to 2010t? Here’s an eight-point reality check.

How’s this for ironic: Intel reached a proposed settlement with the FTC today but AMD’s shares aren’t budging on the news. Hmmm…. Will the settlement foster a level playing field in the microprocessor market? Was there a level playing field already in place? Or are pundits unimpressed with the FTC’s work here? The VAR Guy provides some perspectives.

Move over, Steve Carell. N-able Technologies VP  Derik Belair seems to be pushing his way into The Office. But won’t it be really hard for Belair to replace such a big star who has enjoyed such lengthy success? (“That’s what she said.”) Hmmm… Can The VAR Guy stop with the lame attempts at Carell-inspired humor and please explain Belair’s apparent Office invasion? Sorry for the lengthy set-up. Here’s the scoop.

Endpoint security vendor CoreTrace has updated its Bouncer whitelisting solution with a host of new features designed to further secure users’ corporate devices. Here’s the update.

It’s hard to blame Tim Curran (pictured) for sounding optimistic. As CEO of the Global Technology Distribution Council (GTDC), Curran keeps a close eye on IT sales trends. And the latest trends look pretty darn good to Curran. During a phone call with me, he shared the following perspectives.

I recently left the nest of my family’s family plan, branched away from my Droid and saddled up with AT&T for 2 years to get the iPhone 4. It’s really a beautiful smart phone. It does everything it’s supposed to, and no, I don’t have death grip issues. But for the last 24 hours battery life has been abysmal. Read on for the details…

If you watch television or read the news, it is impossible to miss that video is becoming an increasingly common way to communicate and collaborate — evident through broadcasters like MSNBC (Rachel Maddow show), the 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa, and popular TV shows such as NCIS, 24, CSI Miami and 30 Rock. But where do service providers and channel partners fit in? Here are some clues.

When Oracle acquired Sun Microsystems — and by association, MySQL — plenty of open source pundits expressed concern. After much silence there are at least two signs Oracle plans to show MySQL customers and partners some love. Here’s the scoop from The VAR Guy.

Alongside the desktop and server editions of Ubuntu, Canonical has put considerable effort into Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud recently.  This investment is poised to pay off with Ubuntu 10.10 (Maverick Meerkat), which will introduce several enhancements to the cloud-init package when it debuts next October 2010. Here’s a preview of some of the changes that Ubuntu cloud users have to look forward to.

By now, you know Jim Sherriff is Cisco’s new U.S. and Canada Channel Chief. While Sherriff offers up a video message to Cisco’s channel partners, the IT channel media has been corralling creative headlines tied to Sherriff’s name. Here’s a look at Sherriff’s video message, plus seven outlawed Sherriff headlines The VAR Guy never hopes to read (or write)…

The partnership between Dell and Juniper Networks has already resulted in an agreement calling for Dell to resell Juniper’s EX Series Ethernet Switches and SRX Series Services Gateways under its PowerConnect brand. Future plans include adding Juniper’s MX Router series to the lineup, rounding out Dell’s network infrastructure offerings. So what’s in it for channel partners?