The VAR Guy

The VAR Guy had a bit of an attitude this week. Spam. Meetings. Bad fast food. Hmmm… the distractions, the phone calls and the heart burn never seemed to stop. Alas, here are six channel party blog entries that The VAR Guy was too busy — or too lazy — to write for the week ending March 19, 2010.

A friendly (and timely) reminder. The VAR Guy’s sister site, MSPmentor, this Wednesday (March 24) will host a live webcast focused on Hardware as a Service (HaaS) and Technology as a Service (TaaS). Two fast-growing solutions providers — Everon Technology Services and Black’s Support Services — will describe how they promote, sell and profit from HaaS. Executives from both companies and CharTec (a HaaS specialist and the event’s sponsor) will answer questions throughout the webcast. We look forward to your participation and questions.

What a difference a day makes. Yesterday, VARStreet was an aging portal — in some ways, a remnant of the dot-com boom and bust — designed to help VARs source products from distributors. Today, the VARStreet website has been completely overhauled, and VARStreet is striving to engage thousands of VARs and managed services providers. Who’s responsible for this overhaul? The answer: VARStreet’s new owner, Autotask. Here’s the story, and the implications for solutions providers.

What’s cookin’ at LogLogic? I caught up with Guy Churchward, president and CEO, and Bill Roth, chief marketing officer, to discuss LogLogic’s channel strategy, their market, and why a partner ecosystem works so well in bad (or good) economic times. Here’s a recap.

RainStor, the data storage provider that works with MSPs to back up historical application information, has raised $7.5 million in Series B funding. Here’s the story. The official press release indicates that RainStor intends to use the funding to invest in product R&D, expand into new (presumably international) markets, and to grow its partner base.

The VAR Guy suspects most CA employees — and most VARs — had never heard of Nimsoft before today. But CA’s $350 million buyout of Nimsoft represents a dramatic wake-up call for channel partners and big software companies (um, did somebody say Microsoft?) across the globe. Here’s why.

When CA acquired Nimsoft today for $350 million, it set the stage for some sweeping changes in the managed services market. But this is more than a technology story, folks. CA also gains a colorful executive — Nimsoft CEO Gary Read (pictured) — and a Nimsoft management team that thrives on social media and disrupting competitors. Here’s the scoop, as only The VAR Guy can spin it.

ZyXEL Communications, the ‘complete solution’ guys we’ve been talking about for a while now, have another notch to put in their belt. They’ve joined the Panasonic Solution Developer Network (PSDN). The move signals networking and video surveillance further converging. Intrigued…?

Your friendly neighborhood distribution giant has just put a little more solution in your solutions. Avnet has launched SolutionsPath Advisor, which is designed to help VARs and resellers develop more specialization. Distribution prowess and an education? Tell me more…

Recently, I sat down and had a chat with Zyxel’s Shawn Roger, product marketing manager and Jake Sailana, marcomm manager. The pitch? Have you considered ZyXel for your healthcare needs? Here’s what they want you to know…

Back at the end of January we had our first little chat with Astaro and they gave us a heads-up on 3 new products they were working on in the unified threat management (UTM) market. Now that March has started, they’ve got some more official details on what’s coming out. If you’re even a little bit interested in networking, mail or web security, you many want to take a look…

If you’re out there working with the Tech Data Healthcare Specialized Business Unit (SBU), you’re in for some interesting new. Tech Data has now added a special service for members of the TechMed Alliance. It connects IT resellers to grant writing and tracking services. Here are some details.

Tech Data is working with Sage North America Healthcare Division on the health care vertical. Also news: Sage the first member of the brand new TechMed Vendor Affiliate Program. The aim is to make it easy to build an Electronic Health Records Business. And what does that mean exactly? Well, VARs in healthcare might want to read on…

Picking the right hosting partner for your business can be critical to your success. It’s a given that you want a partner with high quality data centers, a low latency network and quality servers.  At The Planet, we can offer you all that.  But you may also want to select a provider with a la carte services that allow you to meet a broad range of customer service needs, without beginning your search anew.

The Rackspace Cloud posted a net revenue of $56.4 million in 2009 — an increase of almost 125% from 2008. Impressive. But the company will need partners to help maintain that type of growth. With that goal in mind, the cloud hosting provider has launched a partner program to keep that ball rolling. Read on for details.

Tech Data has enhanced their Advanced Infrastructure Solutions (AIS) Division, beefing up their data center solutions for VARs with four new solutions groups. Here are some quick specifics.

Citrix Online has launched GoToManage, a remote monitoring and management (RMM) tool for VARs and managed service providers. To launch the tool, Citrix quietly acquired Paglo Labs, a SaaS (software as a service) specialist in the MSP market. How will GoToManage potentially benefit channel partners? Citrix Online VP Elizabeth Cholawsky and Paglo CEO Brian de Haaff provide details in these two FastChat videos.

Astaro, the Unified Threat Management company we’ve come to know over the past few months, is looking to beef up it’s channel strategy. For 2010 Astaro is looking is to implement some new growth strategies and they’re feeling pretty optimistic. Here’s the run down…

A so-called Master ISMO (independent service and maintenance organization) can help VARs generate recurring revenue from a range of opportunities. But what are those revenue opportunities? And how can solutions providers become certified ISMOs? In this podcast, ServiceKey VP and co-owner Angela Vines (pictured) provides some timely answers and clear advice to solutions providers.

 

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Let’s be honest, here. The VAR Guy and friends mainly focus on VARs and MSPs in the traditional IT industry. But there are some hidden opportunities in the Automatic Data Collection (ADC) industry. That’s the message from Intermec’s Scott Anderson, global channels manager and Jim McDonnell, senior VP of global sales. Here’s what they had to say.

The VAR Guy is booked to meet software giants and disruptive upstarts at Parallels Summit 2010 in Miami. Among the anticipated meetings: A sit-down with Cloud Linux Inc. founder and CEO Igor Seletskiy. The big question: Does the hosting world really need yet another Linux distribution? Seletskiy and Cloud Linux certainly seem to think so. Here’s why.

Dell’s ongoing march into the systems management market has taken an interesting turn. As part of the KACE Networks buyout, Dell is now in position to sell systems management appliances. And those appliances, in turn, can help VARs and MSPs to proactively maintain Linux PCs and Apple Macintoshes. Here are the details.

There’s a few players in the arena right now for getting your UNIX and Linux boxes to play nice with Microsoft Active Directory, but Centrify wants your attention. They take securing your network seriously but do it with what claims to be a simple solution that VARs and MSPs might want to take note at, especially if you’re a VAR setting up and managing data centers.