The VAR Guy

When we last checked in on Dot Hill, the company had just completed a deal with distribution company Condre Storage. Now it’s launching a new fleet of appliances, including a version fitting 36TB inside just 2U of space. The AssuredSAN 3000 Series is aimed at disaster recovery and backup needs, with an eye on corporate compliance. Tech specs and channel perspective to follow …

More and more of the world is becoming virtualized, and VMware believes it knows the needs of that world better than anybody. That’s why the company has launched vFabric 5, designed to make virtual life easier for channel partners and IT admins alike. Gone are antiquated licensing issues, and here to stay are more scalable and deployable environments for virtualized applications. The VAR Guy spoke to VMware’s David McJannet, director of product marketing about the news and got a little color on what this means for the channel …

SAP AG has announced a series of updates to its small and midsize enterprise (SME) business analytics (BI) offerings, in the form of SAP Crystal Server 2011 and SAP BusinessObjects Edge 4.0. The former has been renamed from SAP Crystal Reports to emphasize a new focus on entry-level data search and exploration. And the latter adds key mobility options and other user-friendly enhancements to SAP’s SME BI play. Here’s the scoop on SAP’s alphabet soup.

McAfee is taking a step to get cozier with its SMB partners by introducing a new specialization focusing solely on the SMB space. Partners working inside the McAfee SecurityAlliance program now have a more focused and custom-tailored SMB solutions portfolio, which hopefully will drive partners deeper into what McAfee sees as a $7 billion market opportunity. Read on for the details …

We’ve nearly reached the halfway point for 2011. So which technology predictions are coming true and which ones aren’t quite living up to the hype? Here’s a midyear reality check for the desktop, mobile and tablet markets from our team here at Lenovo.

As Adobe faces increasingly stiff competition on different fronts, one might think the company would be eager to reach the broadest base of end-users possible.  Yet its record of engagement within the open source channel remains lackluster at best.  Let’s take a look at Adobe’s trends on this front, and what they might mean over the long-term.

Unix was ostensibly forged on the philosophy that every entity be designed to do only one thing, and do it well. Has Canonical, which develops one of the most popular Unix-like OS’s around today, thrown this philosophy out the window when it comes to business strategy? Former Canonical COO Matt Asay thinks so.  Here’s why he may be wrong about Canonical and Ubuntu Linux.

The VAR Guy has been keeping close tabs on Internet security company Astaro. Although recently purchased by  Sophos, Astaro remains a standalone channel-focused company, and it’s latest announcement that RackForce has joined its partner community is further proof of that. RackForce is part of Canada-based service provider ICT, providing IaaS and now, apparently is one of the first companies deploying Astaro’s portfolio in an IaaS fashion. Details follow …

The upcoming Mac OS X Lion includes a mode that only loads the Safari web browser when the machine is turned on and does nothing else, thereby creating a web-only computing environment. Does this sandboxed version of Safari have implications deeper than guest convenience? Here’s a little speculation on whether this feature is Apple’s counter to Google Chrome, as well as the potential channel implications …

Unified communications and networking vendor Avaya plans to go public once again, filing a $1 billion initial public offering proposal with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The VAR Guy has noticed a rash of technology companies hitting the market of late, and wonders if Avaya’s move will spur other privately held companies to take the stock market plunge (in a good way).

The next generation of console hardware would be pretty unsatisfying without modern management software to accompany it. It seems natural, then, that OpenGear has partnered with Cormant to deliver an integrated physical infrastructure solution. Here are the details:

VARs looking to add a little bit more value to their storage portfolio might want to check out Avnet’s latest offering, CapacityNow. The service enables Avnet HP VARs and partners to deliver an on-premise data solution that is essentially a private pay-as-you-go storage cloud. Read on for the full details …

iOS 5 may have been the big news this week, but Apple also made some moves in the app space worth noting: Its controversial rules for in-app subscriptions have been relaxed, allowing publishers to offer and freely charge whatever they wish, however they wish. For new media, that’s excellent news. But is there more to Apple’s moves than meets the eye?

Lenovo and De Lage Landen — two Channel Finance 25 companies — continue to expand their financing programs for VARs and managed services providers. The latest example: The Lenovo Partner Credit program, in partnership with De Lage Landen, now offers U.S. resellers up to 60 days of interest-free credit. The program involves such distributors as D&H, Ingram Micro, Synnex and Tech Data. The bigger long-term question: Will Lenovo continue marching forward and perhaps even launch a hardware as a service (HaaS) effort for VARs and MSPs? Here are some early insights.

Thanks to a friend on Twitter, I’ve been added to Apple’s list of approved developer devices. That means both my iPhone 4 and iPad 2 have been equipped with iOS 5, the latest and greatest version of Apple’s mobile operating system.

Serving the WAN community can be a tricky area for VARs. It’s a delicate balance between the right tools, speed and reliability, and Infineta wants VARs to know it understands that perfectly. That’s why the company has launched the Infineta DMS Hyper-Scale WAN, promising 10Gbps and super-low port-to-port latency. I spoke to Haseeb S. Budhani, VP of products, and John Oh, VP of marketing about the new technology and Infineta’s plans for the channel …

The Dell Storage Forum did a good job of laying out the future direction of Dell’s storage strategy and how the company’s recent acquisitions in the space fit into the overall picture. But as with everything, The VAR Guy still had some unanswered questions. Luckily, Brian Bell, VP of Compellent at Dell and Bob Skelley, executive director, Global Channel Partner Program and Channels at Dell were all too happy to sit down with our resident blogger and lay down some more information. Here’s what they had to say about the future of the technology, the future of the channel program, and even the dreaded channel conflict.

Scores of companies have packed the showroom at HP Discover 2011 in Las Vegas to show how they fit in with Hewlett-Packard’s recent slew of cloud computing and converged storage announcements. Some of them have been HP partners for decades, but Egenera, one of HP’s newest partners, is playing one of the biggest roles in helping HP extend its market reach.

Our next Webcast is today (Wednesday, June 8th) at 2:00 p.m. eastern. The topic is Managed Video and Collaboration Services: 3 Steps to Profits. During the webcast InFocus will unveil a 55-inch touch screen; think of it as a massive iPad for your customers’ conference room walls. Join us to learn how to generate recurring revenues from this managed video and collaboration service. Two top MSPs and InFocus will describe how the new solution was designed with MSPs in mind. We will answer your questions throughout the webcast. I hope you’ll register now to join us.

A few times in the past we’ve covered the IPv4 to IPv6 transition, but it’s often received little to no fanfare as IT admins, geeks and techies are seemly the only ones who really care. But you, John Q. VAR, should, even just a little. That’s why Wednesday June 8, 2011, is IPv6 Day, and there are quite a few big-name companies that are jumping on board to get the word out. The Internet is evolving, have you heard? Networking VARs really don’t want to be left behind on this one …

In case you missed it, on June 6, 2011, at Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference, Steve Jobs unveiled Mac OS X Lion, iOS 5 and iCloud. And while iCloud has direct channel implications, iOS 5 has some media implications. Naturally, as a media team, we’re interested. In particular, there are two new features in iOS 5 that could shift the way you read our content, and shift the way we provide it. If you’re a VAR with your own blog, you might want to read up on the features. There’s a lot of potential, but will it go anywhere?

For the Davenport Group, success with Compellent has been good, and success with Dell behind Compellent has been better, but the real secret sauce for Davenport Group’s CEO Sonia St. Charles involves close customer relationships. Call it intimate customer service. No sheets are involved, but the data center fabric is there and interwoven with customer support. The VAR Guy spoke to St. Charles about how Davenport Group stitches it all together and how Dell has helped (and slightly hampered) their momentum…

At the Dell Storage Forum, The VAR Guy sat down and chatted with some key Dell partners. Chief among them: Sidepath. Sidepath had traditionally been a Comepllent partner until Dell acquired the company, and then things got — better. The VAR Guy spoke to Patrick Mulvee, VP of sales at Sidepath about Sidepath’s successes, hurdles and what Sidepath sees as the benefit since working with Dell…