The VAR Guy

The VAR Guy has stumbled across cloud company CoreVault, which is launching a new vCloud powered hosting platform that looks to consolidate data backup and protection with data security while also virtualizing an IT environment. Our resident blogger thinks if you’re an SMB looking for virtualized infrastructure and cloud storage needs, or if you’re a VAR looking to resell that kind of technology, CoreVault may be worth a look. Here’s the lowdown …

Our next two webcasts are right around the corner. First, we’ll cover Vertical Market Managed Services Strategies (this coming Wed., June 22, 2:00 p.m. eastern). Then, we’ll show you how to Building Your Service Desk to Build Business (Wed., July 20, 2:00 p.m. eastern). Use this single link to get more information about either webcast. We look forward to answering your questions during both online events.

The only constant in life is change. We all deal with change differently, but when change comes in business your strategy and methods for adapting to change can easily hurt or improve your ability continue successfully running your business. This is especially true with the change is out of your control, as it so often times is.  So what should VARs do as their technology partners and vendors change?

VoIP-based conferencing upstart Vu TelePresence has been selling the SMB market on its UC and VoIP devices for a while now, but the company recently hit a milestone, claiming a customer base totaling 4 percent of the U.S. telepresence market. In a technology space dominated by the likes of Polycom and Cisco Systems, what’s so special about Vu and its channel program? Read on for a little flavor …

Panasonic’s Toughbook line isn’t just laptops anymore. Now it also includes Android tablets. Panasonic’s latest addition is “purpose-built” for the enterprise, with the company hoping the device will find its way into the government, POS and field-worker spaces, plus others. Tech specs and predictions follow …

Strong product competition from Apple and Google have bruised BlackBerry company Research in Motion’s momentum in the mobility space, with the vendor reporting less-than-stellar Q1 2012 earnings. Can its new technologies such as the Bold Touch and the PlayBook tablet help RIM right the ship, and is there a silver lining somewhere in its cloudy forecast? The VAR Guy has a few ideas. Read on for speculation and a bit of insight …

We already know that Ubuntu Server developers are heavily invested in the cloud, a focus that continues during the current development cycle.  But that’s not all to expect next fall: Ubuntu Server will also add support for ARM architectures.  Here’s a look at exactly what to expect, and what it means for the channel.

Polycom has enhanced its UC Intelligent Core technology once again, beefing up the platform to support 75,000 devices or up to 25,000 concurrent calls and native integration with Microsoft Lync, putting it squarely in the sights of service providers looking for large-scale UC offerings.

Here’s the scenario: You’re a big enterprise with a lot of employees, but you really don’t have the time, money or manpower to completely deploy unified communications on premise. According to Siemens, that problem is no longer a problem. Siemens Enterprise Communications is now bringing its UC offerings you know and love in a cloud format, thanks to UC cloud company inContact. Is this turning Siemens into a value-added distributor for UC cloud solutions? Read on for the details …

Rorke Data, which is now under the ownership of Avnet, has launched a new line of RAID storage solutions specifically targeted at the SMB market. The Galaxy HDX4 series was designed to be price-conscious and simple to deploy. Not too long ago we looked at Rorke’s Galaxy Aurora 36-Bay RAID, but the target market was clearly for content creation and data collaboration. If data backup protection is your calling as a VAR, read on for the details …

By most accounts, Red Hat Enterprise Linux and JBoss middleware are both solid successes. But can two newer initiatives — namely, Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization and OpenShift — also gain critical mass, particularly among cloud computing partners? Here are The VAR Guy’s early educated guesses.

Microsoft is set to launch the Office 365 cloud suite on June 28. Sure, VARs and MSPs can resell the cloud suite directly from Microsoft but those partners can’t control end-customer billing. With that challenge in mind The VAR Guy wonders: Will distributors like Ingram Micro, Tech Data and Synnex provide Office 365 customer billing capabilities to channel partners? Here’s the update and the speculation.

The VAR Guy admits it: He’s a half-out-of-the-closet sci-fi geek. Don’t let the stylish fedora fool you – there are times when our resident blogger would rather be watching reruns of Star Trek than figuring out the nuances of a channel program.

If there’s one thing The VAR Guy has learned at the AMD Fusion Developer Summit, it’s that all the hardware advancements in the world don’t mean a thing if there’s no software to run. That’s the main reason why AMD brought its developer community together for this event, and our resident blogger surmises it’s also the reason why Herb Sutter, Microsoft’s principal architect of native languages, took to the stage at the event to announce a new version of C++ with the features needed to develop for this next generation of processing power.

The VAR Guy is cooling his heels at the AMD Fusion Developer Summit in Bellevue, Wash., where the chip maker has assembled its loyal developer ranks to discuss their role in advancing the Fusion APU technology. And while much of the talk has gone right over our resident blogger’s head (throw lines of code on the screen and The VAR Guy’s eyes instantly glaze over), he has managed to ferret out the channel play. Read on for the deets …

Lenovo has been keeping the PC alive in the post-PC world, and now it’s keeping the local server super-cheap in an offsite cloud computing world. The company is continuing to capture the SMB market with its two new ThinkServers, the TS130 and TS430, and maybe a few cubicles with the new ThinkCentre M71e. Tech specs and a little channel information to follow …

No, pigs aren’t flying, but it’s pretty darn close. Apple has released the iPhone 4 (GSM model) completely unlocked for purchase in the United States for the first time. Unlocked iPhones in the United States have been somewhat of a rare find, existing either as jailbreaked phones or unlocked phones purchased overseas. So what’s all the fuss about, and more importantly, what’s the price tag? Read on …

Honeywell produces a huge range of products for a multitude of different industries, and now the company is focusing on one of the largest emerging industries: mobile. Its latest offering, the Dolphin 6000, is designed to provide mobile information to workers in the field or warehouses. But rather than position Dolphin against other industrial handhelds, Honeywell instead is pitting it against consumer devices that perform similar functions. Can Honeywell be successful with such a strategy?

Rewind to the HP Americas Partner Conference in March 2011. At the time The VAR Guy heard rumors that Hewlett-Packard Executive VP Ann Livermore would soon exit the company but join HP’s board as executive chairwoman. Well, the rumors were true — partly. Livermore is moving out and up but apparently didn’t get the rumored chairwoman title. Here’s the update along with several other changes at HP.

From the start of the AMD Fusion Developer Summit The VAR Guy got a sense of AMD’s purpose in life going forward. This is, after all, a three-day conference dedicated to advancing the development around – and use of – AMD’s Fusion technology. And after finding success with its first Fusion APU codenamed Brazos, AMD is hoping for a repeat with its latest APU line, codenamed Llano.

The VAR Guy’s sister site, Talkin’ Cloud, officially unveiled the Talkin’ Cloud 50 report today. The report tracks the top 50 VARs, MSPs and channel partners working in cloud computing. This isn’t a popularity contest, folks. The Talkin’ Cloud 50 is based on real revenue and business metrics. Here’s the background.

The VAR Guy is on the road again, this time on the left coast at the inaugural AMD Fusion Developer Summit in Bellevue, Wash. During his six-plus hours on a WiFi-less flight (hey Delta, what gives?) with little to do but get caught up on the latest DVD releases and win at Scrabble for iPad, our resident blogger had lots of time to start thinking about where AMD – and its channel – are headed.

Social networking has done wonders for companies to connect with their customers and people to connect with each other. Now Enterasys is hoping its customers will use social networking to connect with their networks – literally.