The VAR Guy

Juniper is preparing multiple online and face-to-face partner marketing enhancements, according to Global Channel Chief Emilio Umeoka and VP of Worldwide Partner Marketing Luanne Tierney. Here’s a sampling of the moves, which Umeoka and Tierney disclosed to The VAR Guy during a meeting at Juniper’s headquarters last week.

Mac OS X Lion was released as a golden master to developers last week, and assuming no major bugs are found, this will be the official release that should come to consumers in July 2011 for a mere $30. But what can we expect for power users? Here’s a quick list of details that server admins and virtualization players should know about Mac OS X Lion and its future in your business, data center or SMB …

Fresh from the Microsoft blogosphere comes news that Windows Thin PC is now available for Software Assurance customers. The VAR Guy was intrigued with this idea when he first heard about it in March 2011, and the fact that Microsoft has designed an entry-level way for companies to jump on virtualization makes Windows Thin PC worth a second look. Read on for some more details on the offering …

Not too long ago we covered Dropbox’s security lapse, during which time users’ data was available to anyone for about four hours. Now, in an effort to mend broken digital relationships, Dropbox has revised its terms of service, privacy policies and security overview to be more transparent and remove near-incoherent “legalese.” Here’s what you should know …

It’s not quite the Wolfpack. But The VAR Guy has a special offer for readers who are traveling from San Francisco to Los Angeles for Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference 2011. Our resident blogger invites up to three readers to join him for the ultimate road trip — driving down the California coastline on July 9 (Saturday) and July 10 (Sunday) — before arriving at Microsoft WPC 2011. Here are the details and how to potentially qualify.

The open source channel continues to present major opportunities for VARs to sell support services for free applications, an opportunity demonstrated most recently by Cloudera’s announcement of an integrated deployment solution for Apache Hadoop. Here’s the scoop:

Enterasys has been on our radar quite a lot lately, most recently for its its focus on bringing more opportunity to channel partners including infrastructure and IP communications for mobile devices. Now, Enterasys is partnering with wireless communications company Ascom to provide just that: high-performance 802.11n voice-over-Wi-Fi (VoWiFi) communications, with an eye on health care and other big vertical markets. Read on for crystal-clear pin-drop details …

HP’s new Client Virtualization Reference Architecture is a playbook of sorts, ensuring customers building out a new virtualization infrastructure (using HP’s portfolio, of course) can hit all their virtualization goals. It’s similar to something VMware has done with the VMware Ready Desktop Solutions Program (which, interestingly, HP was a partner in). HP has inducted a few virtualization vendors as ‘building blocks,’ and now, AppSense is one of them. Brief details follow …

The media unveiling of the Cisco Cius tablet June 29, 2011 , offered up some excellent channel and technology fodder, but The VAR Guy also got to know the Cius from a straight-up design standpoint. Our resident blogger will be the first to admit he has impeccable taste when it comes to the modern-day design aesthetic. Here’s a quick review of the Cius hands-on …