The VAR Guy

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.

It’s time for The VAR Guy to eat a little more crow. Last week, he suggested nobody really cared about Lotusphere anymore. Boy was he wrong. Turns out IBM and the Lotus team unveiled some major partnerships at the event. Here are the top six highlights from Lotusphere, and the potential benefits for VARs.

The VAR Guy certainly loves his iPhone. But he’s keeping a close eye on Google’s open source operating system for mobile phones, called Android. If Google plays its cards right, Android could be the operating system that allows dual-mode VoIP phones to flourish. Here’s a first-look at Android, directly from Google.

The VAR Guy is starting to sound like a broken record (or a scratched CD, for those of you who don’t remember vinyl). Here’s the scoop: Avaya is the latest company to embrace the iPhone as a business device. Yes, a business device. Within the next year or so, as loyal readers here know, The VAR Guy expects the iPhone to emerge as major device for unified business communications.

The iPhone remains The VAR Guy’s favorite digital device. But Flip, a $150 video camera from Pure Digital Technologies, has just made his favorites list as well. It’s a slick, simple device for solutions providers that want to make quick Web videos without spending a fortune doing so.

Sorry if The VAR Guy has been a bit distracted lately. It seems he can’t stop playing with his iPhone. Business email. B2B website browsing. Business voicemail. Hmmm. Who says the iPhone is just for consumers? Certainly not The VAR Guy, who sees more and more business apps moving to the device. The latest example is an emergency notification system from MIR3.

Let’s put aside the channel for a few minutes and reminisce about lost youth. Rewind to the summer of 1986. The VAR Guy was a high school punk busing tables at a local seafood joint. He finally saved enough money — about $400 — to buy the hottest consumer electronics item on the market: a CD player. Next up, he ran to the local record store to purchase his first CD: Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon. It was digital nirvana. Ironically, this very story repeated itself today in Santa Clara — but this time with Apple’s iPhone. Here’s what happened.

The VAR Guy saw this coming: For months, he has called on Apple to partner with Cisco Systems to ensure the iPhone worked with Cisco-based networks. Now comes word that Duke University (a major Cisco customer) is experiencing network problems — allegedly due to iPhone-related problems.