The VAR Guy

Congratulations: You’ve survived scores of channel partner conferences in 2011. But before you celebrate, it’s time to start planning your 2012 calendar. To help you get started here’s a look at the Top 100 Channel Partner Conferences for 2011. And here’s the twist: The VAR Guy needs your help nailing down the dates and locations for a few of the events, which are designed for VARs, MSPs, IT service providers and cloud services providers.

First, a few caveats:

• Final List: The VAR Guy will publish a finalized Top 100 Channel Partner Conferences list here in December 2012.
• Suggestions and Corrections: To submit an event for consideration post a comment below and/or email The VAR Guy’s team (joe [at] NineLivesMediaInc [dot] com and Dave [at] NineLivesMediaInc [dot] com).
• What’s Listed… And What Isn’t: The VAR Guy only lists channel-centric conferences. No road shows or executive roundtables… unless The VAR Guy is invited and seated promptly for fresh lobster.

Now, the Top 100 Channel Partner Conferences of 2012… a preliminary look at the list…

Top 100 Channel Partner Conferences of 2012, Q1

• Jan 2: Federal Holiday, New Year’s Day
• Jan 9-13: International CES, Las Vegas — Not exactly channel, but it is the consumerization of IT.
• Jan 13: The VAR Guy’s alleged birthday. Cards and comments welcome.
• Jan. 15-19: Lotusphere 2012, Orlando, Fla. — IBM’s backing keeps this on The VAR Guy’s radar.
• Jan 15-18: National Retail Federation, New York — worth watching for channel partners going vertical.
• Jan 16: Federal Holiday – Martin Luther King, Jr. Day
• Jan 16-18: Juniper Global Partner Conference, Las Vegas — The company’s first global partner conference. Dear Luanne Tierney — is there a web site for this? Please let The VAR Guy know.
• Jan 29-31: CA Technologies MSP Forum, Miami, Fla. — Just a rumor that this event exists… Stay tuned.
• Feb. 1-3: Digium AsteriskWorld, Miami, Fla — for channel partners focused on open source IP PBX. Part of larger IT Expo event.
• Feb. 1-3: MSPWorld, Miami, Fla. — part of a bigger IT Expo event.
• Feb. 13-15: HP Global Partner Conference, Las Vegas
• Feb. 13-16: VMware Partner Exchange, Las Vegas
• Feb. 14-16: Parallels Summit, Orlando — always a good source for cloud partner information.
• Feb. 13-16: Cloud Connect, Santa Clara, Calif.
• Feb. 20: Federal Holiday – Presidents’ Day
• Feb. 21-23: Avnet Technology Solutions Partner Summit with Cisco, Phoenix, Ariz.
• Feb. 20-24: HIMSS, Las Vegas — The place to be for health care service providers.
• Feb. 21-23, Avnet and Cisco Partner Conference, Phoenix, Ariz.
• Feb 27-March 2: RSA Conference, San Francisco — the big IT security blow-out
• Feb. 29-March 1, ASCII Success Summit, Orlando, Fla.
• March 4-7: IBM Pulse 2012, Las Vegas
• March 6-9: XChange Solution Provider, Los Angeles — Bob, Bob and The VAR Guy at Disney Land?
• March 21-22: ASCII Success Summit, Southern Calif.
• March 26-29: Channel Partners Conference, Las Vegas

Top 100 Channel Partner Conferences of 2012, Q2

• April 1: The VAR Guy’s Second Annual Hawaii Luau
• April 10-12: CompTIA Annual Member Meeting, Chicago
• April 15-18: Synnex Varnex Spring Conference, New Orleans.
• April 16-19: Cisco Partner Summit, San Diego
• May 2-4: Kaseya Connect User Conference, Las Vegas
• May 7-10: HTG Summit, Dallas
• May 9-11: Citrix Synergy 2012, San Francisco
• May 24-25: Transform, Orlando, Fla. — organized for managed print services specialists
• May 28: Federal Holiday – Memorial Day
• June 4-7: Ingram Micro Cloud Summit, Scottsdale, Ariz.
• June 7: CRN Power 500 (a.k.a. VARBusiness 500 and VAR500) – Will The VAR Guy make the cut?
• June 10-12: Autotask Community Live, Orlando, Fla.
• June 11-13: LabTech Automation Nation, Orlando, Fla.
• June 11-14: Microsoft TechEd, Orlando, Fla.
• June 20-21: ASCII Success Summits, Washington, D.C.
• June 26-29: Red Hat Summit and JBoss World, Boston

Top 100 Channel Partner Conferences of 2012, Q3

• July 4: Federal Holiday, Independence Day
• July 8-12: Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference, Toronto
• July 16-18: HostingCon, Boston, Mass.
• July 20-21: Schnizzfest, Philadelphia, Pa. — hosted by TruMethods, the MSP-centric coaching organization.
• July 30-Aug. 2: CompTIA Breakaway 2012, Las Vegas
• Aug 19-20: XChange 2012, Dallas
• Aug. 27-30: VMworld, San Francisco
• Sept. 3: Federal Holiday, Labor Day
• Sept 19-20: ASCII Success Summit, Chicago
• Sept 30-Oct. 4: Oracle OpenWorld, San Francisco — Channel partners should arrive early; Channel Chief Judson Althoff frequently holds court on Sunday.

Top 100 Channel Partner Conferences of 2012, Q4

• Oct. 3-6: Synnex National Conference, Greenville, S.C.
• Oct. 3-7: Interop New York
• Oct. 8: Federal Holiday – Columbus Day
• Oct 17-18: ASCII  Success Summits, Location TBD
• Nov. 6-8: HTG All, Orlando, Fla.
• Nov. 8-10: IT Nation, hosted by ConnectWise, Orlando — typically includes multiple channel vendor events.
• Nov. 12: Federal Holiday – Veterans Day
• Nov. 12-15: Synnex Varnex Fall, Location TBD, West Coast
• Nov. 22: Federal Holiday – Thanksgiving
• Dec. 25: Federal Holiday – Christmas

Please Send Us Dates and Locations

When and where are the additional channel partner conferences listed below? And what isn’t listed? The VAR Guy wants to know. Please post a comment or send email to The VAR Guy’s lieutenants: Joe [at] NineLivesMediaInc [dot] com and David [at] NineLivesMediaInc [dot] com.

• Asigra Partner Conference
• Avnet Technology Solutions — potential dedicated events for IBM, HP and Oracle partners
• Brocade Tech Summit
• CAWorld
• Citrix Partner Summit
• Cisco Velocity
• Enterasys Americas Partner Conference
• Google I/O
• IBM PartnerWorld
• Ingram Micro — VTN, GovEd and more
• Intel Solutions Summit
• Intermedia Partner Summit
• Kaspersky Lab Partner Summit
• Lenovo Partner Summit
• McAfee Focus
• N-able Partner Summit
• NetSuite Partner Summit
• Novell BrainShare
• Robin Robins
• SAP Partner Summit, SAP Sapphire
• ShoreTel Champions Partner Conference
• SMB Nation — multiple events
• Symantec Partner Engage
• Tech Data — multiple events
• Tigerpaw Partner Summit
• viaVerio Partner Summit
• VMware Partner Exchange
• What did The VAR Guy miss?

Still Upset?

Last call: If you’re aware of additional partner conference names, dates and locations please post a comment. The VAR Guy will be sure to consider your suggestion as he compiles his final list of Top 100 Channel Partner Conferences of 2012.

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