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.

Cloud integrators. Those two words describe an emerging group of VARs, solutions providers and MSPs that piece together and manage multiple cloud solutions for customers. But is the cloud integrator term pure hype — or here to stay? Hmmm… Before you answer that question, consider an important lesson involving so-called Web integrators from the dot-com error, um, era.

ZyXEL, the networking solutions company we’ve been tracking for some time now, has announced they’ve done a little spring cleaning with their ZyWALL series. A little polishing, a little upgrading, and some new features. Read on to find out…

It’s not the final nail in the coffin, but it’s yet another sign of Windows XP’s decline. Microsoft is officially dumping Windows XP support in the next iteration of Internet Explorer. Here’s the why and how and what’s next from Microsoft…

Paragon Software, whose expertise is in data management and security, is launching  Virtualization Manager 2010 Corporate Edition. The software could help VARs and solutions providers with Windows environment software migrations. Here’s a quick look at the potential benefits.

Yes, even business intelligence partner programs are connecting with the cloud. One prime example: Birst, an upstart in the BI market, says 27 systems integrators have joined the company’s SaaS-centric partner program. Here’s the scoop.

We’d previously reported that hosted Internet telephony automation service provider Ifbyphone had acquired VoIP application development environment Cloudvox, but now it looks like the acquisition is yielding its first fruit. Cloudvox has announced a pay-as-you-go rate of $0.03/minute and some new features for developers. Here’s the scoop.

Canonical’s effort to diversify beyond Ubuntu Linux continue to accelerate. Even as the company preps Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid Lynx) for April 2010 launch, Canonical is also promoting Landscape — a remote management tool — to resellers and end-customers. And there’s even a cloud management twist. Here’s the scoop.

Wanova is a software virtualization company that’s making some ripples in the big virtualization pool. Launching today comes some new Distributed Desktop Virtualization software and it’s designed to cut costs and be future proof. Does that sound too good to be true? Here’s the deal on the new offering…

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.

For the second time in recent weeks, hosted unified communications is earning some headlines. But this time, the news involves an open source initiative between Open-Xchange (an open source email company) and 4PSA (a VoIP and cloud unified communications specialist). Here are the implications for VARs and managed services providers.

The folks over at PC World Business Center are running an article titled, “Five Features the iPad Needs For Business” by Tony Bradley. Bradley raises some interesting points as to why the iPad isn’t quite ready for the prime-time suit and tie type. Naturally, I disagree. If you want to learn why the iPad is already business ready, read on…

In some pockets of IT, thin clients coupled with virtualization are all the rage. The latest example involves Devone IT, an “alternative desktop computing” company that has launched a thin client leveraging XenDesktop and Citrix technology. Here are the potential implications for VARs.

The next sexy industrially designed thing to come out of Apple might not be something you put in your pocket. It could be something you wear. News is that Apple has hired wearable-computing guru Richard DeVaul to work on some new prototyping for Apple. Here’s the scoop…

In a move designed to cultivate their partner ecosystem, IBM is extending development and test services to their enterprise cloud platform, allowing software vendors and cloud service providers to build, debug, and finally deliver applications all through Big Blue. Here’s the scoop.

Red Hat grew up on Linux, but the company’s next generation of growth will involve JBoss middleware, cloud computing and virtualization. That’s the message Red Hat intends to deliver to European, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) partners in May 2010.  And again to global partners in June 2010. Here are the details.

Alfresco Software, which specializes in open source enterprise content management, says it more than doubled its partner network in 2009. But here’s the really interesting part: Alfresco partners are earning $10 to $15 worth of services for every dollar of Alfresco Enterprise subscriptions sold. Here are the details.

VMWare, one of the most prominent names in virtualization, is launching Workstation Version 7.1 as a public beta release. The best part is, it’s free ’till May. What are the new features? Read on…

Software as a service (SaaS) and cloud stocks continue to show some strength. For the week ending March 12, The VAR Guy’s SaaS 20 Stock Index — which tracks 20 SaaS and cloud stocks — rose 4.19%, and the index is now up a healthy 5.57% so far in 2010. Weekly winners included Kenexa Corp. (KNXA), Vocus Inc. (VOCS) and NetSuite (N). Here’s a closer look at the weekly leaders and laggards.

The VAR Guy has been drinking with two fists this week — Coca Cola in one hand, latte in the other. The steady diet of caffeine helped our resident blogger to drive plenty of web traffic. But The VAR Guy still couldn’t meet all of his deadlines. Here are six channel partner-related blog entries that The VAR Guy failed to write for the week ending March 12, 2010:

All’s fair in love, war and the software market — where Microsoft is offering substantial dollars to U.S. customers that dump NetSuite for Microsoft Dynamics. The move comes only a few days after NetSuite started offering on-premises VARs (i.e., Microsoft’s partner base) new revenue incentives to promote NetSuite. Here’s a look at the ERP sparring match.

The Google Apps Marketplace cat is out of the bag, and software developers seem to be tripping over themselves to get listed. A few software companies have been shouting the reasoning behind their marketplace moves from the rooftops, calling it the herald of the emerging software as a service (SaaS) market. Here’s a roundup of what some of these companies have to say for themselves.

Citrix Systems continues to bolster its virtualization story. Sometime later this month, the company expects to ship XenApp 6, a virtualization and application “delivery product” that lets users connect to corporate applications. You can also host apps with XenApp, or stream them direct to the local user. Here are some more details.