The VAR Guy is starting to build his travel schedule for 2012. And he’s already spotted a potential date conflict: It looks like Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) and VMware (VMW) — which do partner with one another — are scheduled to host their respective channel partner summits during the same week, in the same city, for 2012.

According to The VAR Guy’s Top 100 Channel Partner Conferences guide for 2012, the respective events are scheduled for:

  • Feb. 13-15: HP Global Partner Conference, Las Vegas
  • Feb. 13-16: VMware Partner Exchange, Las Vegas

And just to make things extra interesting… Parallels Summit — a cloud-centric partner conference in Orlando, Fla. — also is that week.

So what’s The VAR Guy to do? Perhaps our resident blogger will clone himself that week.

The HP gathering should offer plenty of drama. At last year’s event, former CEO Leo Apotheker gave a somewhat confusing keynote that previewed HP’s public cloud strategy linked to HP WebOS mobile devices. Apotheker predicted HP would wind up competing with Amazon Web Services, Apple iTunes, Apple iPads and more. A few months later, HP confused the market by killing WebOS and evaluating the potential sale of its PC division.

HP’s board ousted Apotheker in September 2011, and new CEO Meg Whitman has vowed to keep HP’s PC business in place. At the HP partner conference, it’s a safe bet Whitman will try to deliver a concise, consistent, focused message to the HP partner base.

VMware Partner Exchange 2012

Meanwhile, VMware Partner Exchange 2012 will attempt to build on VMware’s 2011 momentum. When VMware released Q3 results back on Oct. 17, 2011, the company noted:

  • Q3 revenue jumped 32 percent to $942 million.
  • Q3 net income was $178 million, compared to $85 million in Q3 2010.

VMware announced a cloud infrastructure suite in Q3, while also positioning VMware View and VMware Horizon as key offerings to help channel partners manage customer networks in the post-PC era. Also, keep an eye on VMware Micro Cloud Foundry, which is positioned for PaaS (platform as a service). The VAR Guy expects additional updates at the VMware Partner Exchange 2012.

Parallels Summit 2012

Not to be forgotten, Parallels Summit 2012 is Feb. 14-16 in Orlando, Fla. The event has grown beyond Parallels customers to include cloud- and MSP-centric partners. Many of the channel partners use Parallels to more rapidly launch cloud and SaaS services.

Channel leaders have increasingly discovered Parallels Summit. Renee Bergeron, VP of managed services and cloud services at Ingram Micro, spoke at Parallels Summit 2011 — aggressively positioning Ingram as the top cloud aggregator in the IT channel. Looking ahead to Parallels 2012, watch for MSP- and channel-friendly companies like Open-Xchange and MXSweep to be on hand.

Also, watch for updates from Parallels’ growing executive team, which includes cloud-focused recruits from Microsoft and Symantec.

Where’s The VAR Guy?

So which of the three channel partner conferences will The VAR Guy attend that week? Stay tuned…

 

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