The VAR Guy

In the world of VoIP, you can’t forget your most basic need: The telephone. It’s internals have evolved, but the purpose remains the same — reliable voice conversations regardless of the customer’s budget. Snom knows that, and is launching two new VoIP phones to give SMBs the power of enterprise phones, without the big price tag. The VAR Guy spoke to snom’s COO Mike Storella about the phones and snom’s channel focus…

Brocade is releasing a new line of networking technologies aimed at enhancing the enterprise connection between the corporate network and beyond.

Dozens of cloud vendors and potential channel partners gathered in Mountain View, Calif., on November 7 for the inaugural Cloud Channel Summit. The common goal: Connecting the dots between cloud services providers, VARs and resellers to build new revenue opportunities. But guest speakers — including folks from Salesforce.com, CompTIA, GoodData, rPath and more — frequently debated the path forward. Among the key topics discussed: Whether VARs need a vertical focus to succeed in cloud computing.

The VAR Guy is once again headed to Las Vegas, where he’ll be at the 2012 Avaya U.S./Gov Sales Leadership and Partner Conference. This year, Avaya is splitting its partner conferences into two events — one for its U.S. partners and another for its international partners. So what will our resident blogger be on the lookout for at this year’s event? Read on for the info.

If you’re a Dropbox fan but searching for something more — short of building your own home server — you may want to check out the TonidoPlug2. It’s designed to act as a super-power efficient file server, with a few extra features to boot. Read on for the quick look at what could be your new best friend, especially if you or your customers travel a lot…

Former Lenovo President and COO Rory Read, now CEO of AMD, is shaking up the chip company. Indeed, Read is cutting AMD’s expenses and reshaping the company structure through substantial layoffs and other new strategies. But can AMD overcome fierce competition from Intel and ARM? The VAR Guy has some thoughts…

Microsoft is implementing some interesting services for the Windows 8 experience, blending mobile technology with a desktop-esque experience. This time, the Building Windows 8 blog is detailing how the new Windows Push Notification Service brings constant real-time tiles to Windows 8 tablets and computers, without draining the battery. Here’s the scoop…

Recently at our annual partner conference, we talked about the opportunities for partners around key IT trends including cloud, virtualization and mobility. Cloud computing in particular seems to be a hot topic of conversation, on the minds of IT administrators and executives alike. And, just like your customers, you are probably trying to figure out how it will affect your business. After all, some businesses are adopting the cloud wholeheartedly, while others are taking a more cautious approach. Fortunately, cloud computing presents new opportunities for SMB partners to reach more customers than ever before.

As time marches inexorably forward to 2012, the rumors around new technology have begun heating up, and there are no rumors more juicy than those coming from Apple rumor mill. The latest from industry site Digitimes says Apple has big plans for the next coming year. Read on for the details …

HP’s Slate isn’t dead, it’s actually been resurrected. The new, improved, Slate 2 is coming from HP, and it has been redesigned to target vertical industries where mobility is important. But can the HP Slate 2 stack up against the competition, and more importantly, is it relevant?

It’s that time again for The VAR Guy’s roundup of the latest and greatest channel news coming out of IT distribution companies. This week, Avnet dips its toes into the ARM waters at ARM TechCon 2011 and Tech Data launches a new accessTD iPhone app. Here’s what you need to know …

Yawn. It’s just past midnight here in New York. The VAR Guy is getting ready to go to bed — with a big bowl of ice cream, of course. But before our resident blogger signs off for sweeter pursuits, here are six pieces of high-tech news that The VAR Guy didn’t have time to write for the week ending Nov. 4, 2011.

Google finally launched a completely native Gmail client for the iOS ecosystem, promising to bring the push notifications and search capabilities you enjoy with Gmail but couldn’t get using Apple’s Mail App. But just moments after it launched the app, Google pulled it down. What happened? And is the app all Google wants it to be? Read on for the review …

So you bought a list of leads in your target market. You may be tempted to simply begin calling those leads and trying to sell your products. Not so fast; there are many ways VARs can nurture those leads, improving your chance of obtaining a successful closure. To get started, I’ve got five tactics to help you weed out the uninterested leads while allocating resources to the good ones — thus preventing your sales force from wasting time.

Red Hat wrapped up a major channel partner conference last week. But the channel chatter continues within the Linux and open source specialist. Indeed, Red Hat is mulling potential ways to make sure the company’s internal sales team works even more closely with channel partners, according to North America Channel Chief Roger Egan. Here’s the update, and a look at how Red Hat plans to accelerate Linux, virtualization, Jboss middleware, cloud and storage sales through the channel.

Amanda Jobbins, VP of partner marketing at Cisco Systems, is focusing on five core priorities to help channel partners more closely engage their end-customers. Jobbins described her strategy during a chat with The VAR Guy earlier today.

FalconStor and Fujitsu are gearing up to take the world by storm. With a new reseller agreement, both companies will be pushing storage technology deep into all global marketplaces. Here are the distro details and The VAR Guy’s take …

Attention all Mac VARs and fanatics: Parallels Desktop and VMware Fusion have gone head to head in a benchmark throwdown performed by MacTech Labs. The victor? Parallels Desktop for Mac. Read on for the benchmark numbers and some perspective …

In its never-ending quest to build green IT and power efficient servers, HP is using Calxeda EnergyCore ARM Cortex CPUs in its new server line. The Calxeda technology is specifically designed for “emerging extreme low-energy” needs, so what does that mean for the future of servers? I have a few ideas …

Oracle is a name long recognized as a leader in the enterprise software and hardware space. And much of its success lies squarely on the shoulders of its partners, whom the company relies on to help it reach new markets and new customers. In turn, Oracle’s partners have access to one of the most comprehensive partner programs in the industry: the Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN).

Dot Hill is making strategic storage moves in an agreement with distributor Info X to put more of Dot Hill’s storage solution portfolio deeper into cloud and virtualization networking solutions. Dot Hill has long been ramping up its virtualization and SAN technologies, and Info X has a long history of serving storage VARs. Read on for the details and The VAR Guy’s unique perspective …

BroadSoft is looking to shake things up in the unified communications world with BroadTouch, a platform-agnostic UC solution that can bring UC technology to almost any device with an Internet connection. How does it work, and is it game-changing? Read on for the details.

Finally, Google has publicly admitted Android has some graphical issues. One of my biggest pet peeves with Android has been Android’s inability to render graphics smoothly despite the speed or heft or the mobile CPU — it always produced a choppy interface. It’s jarring and it’s especially unattractive when compared to iOS. So what is Google doing to fix the solution?