The VAR Guy

Drobo, formerly Data Robotics, the storage company behind the stylish and svelte data appliances that offer both pro-sumer and professional technology, is boasting some milestones in 2011 that are putting Drobo on track to have a stellar year for 2012. Read on for the storage details …

The Ubuntu Software Center, Canonical’s take on the app store concept, is slated to move a step closer to the big leagues by the end of December 2011 with the implementation of support for PayPal. Here’s the scoop, and why it matters.

In case Avnet wasn’t already big enough, the distribution company has set its sights on Nexicore Services, a company that provides on-site installation and repair of various electronic equipment. The super-quick rundown on the acquisition details are all here. All you need to do is read on …

According to a recent research done by the Society of Information Management (SIM), IT budgets, salaries and staff turnover rates have returned to pre-recessionary levels, indicating optimism among CIOs and IT executives. Even at the beginning of the economic collapse, IT budgets were expected to rise, albeit only slightly. With IT budgets continuing to tighten, what does this mean for technology partners?

There’s no shortage of cloud-based file sharing services out there these days, but many have flaws: Dropbox has suffered embarrassing security holes, Ubuntu One isn’t as cross-platform as one might like, and iCloud — like most Apple products — is buried in proprietary nonsense. But there’s a new cloud-based service on the horizon: ownCloud has announced a new commercial initiative that, based on open source code, promises flexibility and accountability without lock-in or security headaches. It’s an interesting move with fascinating possibilities for the open source channel, and I recently got a chance to speak with one of the founders behind it.

Fresh from Globes, an Israeli business news publication, comes a report that Apple is building an Israel-based R&D facility based entirely around semiconductor research. Could Apple be setting itself up to be the next big chip manufacturer? Is there the possibility we could see Apple CPUs in non-Apple products? Speculation, questions and answers are all coming right up …

Microsoft is taking the model learned from the successes and mistakes of app stores of past (including the Windows Phone Marketplace) and applying them to the brand new Windows 8 Windows Store. It’s a little something borrowed, a little something new, and it has a lot of potential to shake up the tablet space. Here’s the scoop …

Aruba Networks continues to make moves to address the proliferation of mobile devices in the workplace. This time, the company has made VIA, the Virtual Intranet Access Application, available as a downloadable app for Apple users. Features and details follow …

It’s not quite on the order of Microsoft Office, but Microsoft has been releasing a variety of applications in an effort to appeal to the iOS crowd. We’ve already covered the vendor’s efforts with Bing, and more recently Microsoft released OneNote for the iPad. Now from Microsoft is a version of SkyDrive for the iPhone. What does that mean for the mobile world as a whole? Good things …

A jury in Utah is deliberating whether Microsoft practiced anti-competitive behavior to destroy Novell’s WordPerfect office suite business in the 1990s. If the jury finds in Novell’s favor, the judge could award triple damages as high as $3 billion, according to the Salt Lake City Tribune. But The VAR Guy suspects Microsoft is going to win this case. Here’s why.

UC company ShoreTel is shoring up its virtualization offerings with a new VMware Ready certification for ShoreTel’s Enterprise Contact Center (ECC). For UC VARs working the virtualization space, read on for a few more details.

Sage Group, the enterprise software company that, since May 2011, has been going through a rebranding process, has launched a new ISV partner program specifically designed to enhance its PCI business. As mobility ramps up, PCI is almost definitely to follow suit with mobile payment and NFC payment devices finding their way into retail stores. Here’s the scoop on how partners can cash in …

Intel expects its Q4 2011 revenues to be “below the company’s previous outlook due to hard disk drive supply shortages.” That’s not good news for Intel, but what does it mean in the long run, and how will it impact IT market and the channel? Read on for the rundown …

As you may or may not know, Apple rumors are often indirectly confirmed when developers or code spelunkers find new product IDs inside the iOS beta code. But Apple has wised up to how the Apple rumor mill works and deployed an interesting tactic to deter would-be investigators: spamming its own configuration files. Read on for the details …

“The cloud” can be hard to visualize, not least because the hardware behind it is often an ambiguous collection of servers scattered somewhere across the ether of the Internet. But in Canonical’s vision, the cloud can be something as simple and concrete as a USB stick running the Ubuntu Cloud Live image, which makes the creation of private clouds quite trivial. I recently got a chance to play around with this neat tool, and here’s what I found.

Join our next webcast today at 2:00 p.m. eastern. We’ll cover five best practices for selling cloud services. Confirmed speakers include Savvis VP Martin Capurro, Mycroft CISO Liz Mann, and CA Technologies Senior Advisor Wendy Petty (CA is the event’s sponsor). We’ll take your questions throughout the webcast. Register now and pose your questions at 2:00 p.m. eastern today.

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: Canonical may have all but given up the fight to ship Ubuntu on consumer PCs in the United States, at least for now, but it remains staunchly committed to forging strong relationships with hardware manufacturers. The company’s latest effort in this vein is a new Web portal catered to that group — which is also a significant example of how Canonical is reconfiguring the way people find information about Ubuntu. Read on for details.

An interesting guest post from Microsoft over at VMWare’s blog suggests 2012 will be the first year that the cloud “moves from a buzzword to a reality.” Microsoft’s director for Virtualization and Cloud Strategy, Edwin Yuen, detailed the ways companies can achieve this goal, and of course, there’s some channel perspective, brought to you by The VAR Guy himself. Here’s the scoop …

On the heels of ADTRAN Connect 2011 comes an aggressive new move as the networking company looks to make a bigger splash in the IT industry and the channel. ADTRAN has Nokia Siemens Networks’ Broadband Access Business in its crosshairs for acquisition, and with that comes new opportunities. Details are on deck …

The VAR Guy has speculated, predicted and covered the details of HP’s decision to make webOS open source and you, dear readers, had quite a bit to say about it. For such a once obscure OS, the tech community has certainly taken an interest in the now “open” mobile OS. But is this the best way for webOS to survive? Here’s what I think an open source webOS world will bring us …

Reports are coming in that production of the iPad 3 has accelerated, which means 2012 will bring the third yearly March or April release for the next-generation iPad. The big news, which we’ve covered in the past, is the iPad 3 will feature a retina display. But do we really need that? Here’s what a retina display could mean for the tablet landscape and for consumerization of IT …

H3 Solutions, creator of Mobile Entree for Microsoft SharePoint, has welcomed OBS into its Mobile Entree Alliance Program. OBS is an Australia-based SharePoint specialist, and adding OBS to its alliance program will allow H3 to extend Mobile Entree to SharePoint users throughout Australia for the first time.

Linux’s ability to run on old or budget hardware has long been a popular talking point among free software advocates. Yet in recent years, the system requirements of mainstream desktop Linux distributions have been skyrocketing. At the same time, Windows 8 is slated to demand fewer resources than its predecessors. What could this mean for Linux? Here are some thoughts.