The VAR Guy

BusinessWeek and some Web articles are speculating about Apple’s future in the business market. Is Apple finally ready to “push” deeper into business? That question may be moot. Fact is, Apple is creating business “pull” rather than business “push.” Here’s what The VAR Guy means.

Now that Microsoft has ended its pursuit of Yahoo!, a lot of folks are analyzing the big picture at both companies. Yada, yada, yada. But instead of focusing on the forest, The VAR Guy would prefer to focus on one tiny tree: Zimbra, the open source email platform that Yahoo owns, can now breathe a little easier.

Low-cost mini notebooks like the Asus Eee PC continue to win rave reviews. And now Fortune is praising a Hewlett-Packard mini-laptop that “packs a lot of punch.” You can almost see Steve Jobs writing on an white board somewhere at Apple, weighing the pros and cons of launching his own tiny notebook offensive.

Thanks to poor service and support from JetBlue and a Westin hotel, The VAR Guy estimates that he lost about 5 hours of personal productivity this week. Our resident blogger was pretty darn frustrated — until a trip to the Apple Store restored The VAR Guy’s faith in customer service. Here’s what happened.

Be careful of what you ask for. A small company in Miami has launched a $399 Mac compatible computer, and the firm’s Web site apparently wasn’t prepared for all of the traffic that such an offer could potentially produce.

The looming Google Android vs. Apple iPhone battle could wind up looking a lot like the old Windows vs. Mac OS war from more than a decade ago. Here’s why.

Apple and Microsoft. Sometimes, they actually do get along. The iPhone will soon support Microsoft Exchange (as The VAR Guy suspected), along with a lengthly list of other enterprise features. Here’s the scoop.

Ever wonder why The VAR Guy is so happy running Mac OS X and Ubuntu Linux? Perhaps it has something to do with the true cost of spyware — an epidemic problem mostly limited to the world of Windows. So, how does spyware impact user productivity? A new report from CompTIA (the Computing Technology Industry Association) provides some clues.

Plenty of skeptics think Apple has foolishly ignored iPhone opportunities in the enterprise for nearly a year. The VAR Guy begs to differ. He thinks this was all part of a wise, calculated Apple strategy. And besides, Apple will finally give the iPhone some enterprise attention on March 6. Here’s the scoop.

High-end TelePresence systems allow executives scattered across the world to feel as if they’re sitting across from each other in a single, virtual boardroom. But what if this next-generation video conferencing technology could be scaled down for use in your living room? Apparently, Apple is quite interested in making that dream a reality. If true, they should give Cisco Systems call.