The VAR Guy

Novell’s board has considered and rejected an unsolicited $2 billion takeover bid from Elliott Associates, a hedge fund that wants to swallow SUSE Linux and Novell’s other core products. Novell’s rejection of the bid, announced March 20, answers some questions but raises others on the eve of BrainShare, the company’s big customer and partner event in Salt Lake City, Utah. Now the twist: Novell’s board essentially wrote an open letter to other potential suitors. Here’s the analysis from 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.

Amid all the hustle and bustle of the iPad, Apple’s homepage today is plain with one news story. There are no ads or links to fancy pre-orders or special deals. Apple’s front page today serves as a memorial to Jerome B. York, one of Apple’s (and many other companies) most influential directors. He passed away on March 18th 2010 at 71 years old…

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…

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.

It’s one of the oddest stories to sweep across the Internet this week. After nearly plunking down $300 dollars for a new shiny Intel Core i7 CPU, NewEgg customers were greeted with a fake. The box may have fooled people on the outside, but a close inspection of the “product” revealed the CPU to be a fraud. Distributors and VARs might want to perk up in case you receive any dubious ‘demo units’ of CPUs…

Apparently, there’s more money to be made in hosted applications — which is why Rackspace Hosting’s hosted solutions division is relaunching their reseller program with higher margins and more products. Here’s the deal.

Despite our predictions, the RSA Security Conference in San Francisco ended with a whimper on Friday. Awards were presented, but the biggest announcements were made earlier in the week. Here’s the roundup of the day’s events and our overall convention analysis.

Novell’s board of directors is facing a pair of symbolic deadlines: The VAR Guy thinks Novell will need to somehow address the pending private equity takeover bid by Elliott Associates before the BrainShare conference starts March 21 in Salt Lake City, Utah and before Red Hat announces quarterly results on March 24. Here’s why.

The biggest news out of the the third day of the RSA Security Conference in San Francisco: a gamut of computing industry leaders, including Google, Verizon, and CA, announced the formation of the Open Identity Exchange, a non-profit organization dedicated to building trust in online identity credentials. Here’s the scoop, along with the rest of the day 3 highlights.

The RSA Security Conference started up in San Francisco on March 1, gathering the best and brightest in the computer security field. It seems like everybody in attendance had their head in the cloud. Here’s a day 1 conference roundup.

Attention all those holding stock with Apple Inc., don’t expect any sort of dividend or buyback. Steve Jobs doesn’t plan on it. All the cash Apple has is staying in the bank, and that’s final. Is that a smart idea for Apple? For Jobs’ persona? Here’s the deal…

SCALE, the Southern California Linux Expo, kicks off today in Los Angeles. More than a Linux geek fest, there are signs that SCALE is starting to attract solutions providers that work with Red Hat, Novell, Canonical and other open source partner programs. Here’s a look at five key trends solutions providers should be watching at SCALE.

Nancy Reynolds, as expected, took the stage today at the Kaspersky Lab Americas Partner Conference in the Dominican Republic. As Kaspersky Lab’s senior VP, Corporate Sales Americas, Reynolds called on partners to double — and potentially triple — their security sales in 2010. Here are three key takeaways from Reynolds.

More than 2,600 partners will converge at this week’s VMware Partner Exchange conference in Las Vegas. Big channel names such as Arrow ECS and Ingram Micro will lend their names to the event. Multiple cloud and virtualization storylines will emerge. But The VAR Guy is zeroing in on one thread: VMware’s strategy for Zimbra, the recently acquired open source email platform.

The VAR Guy is keeping a close eye on Vartopia, some sort of multi-vendor deal registration web site. Vartopia’s founders appear set to disclose their plans sometime today at VMware Partner Exchange, a massive partner conference this week in Las Vegas. Here are the early details.

Here’s an interesting tidbit out of Redmond: Microsoft is looking for “Road Warriors” to work with their New Zealand branch. The deal? Up to $43,000, but you’ll have to hustle around for four months touting the awesomeness of Office 2010 Suite. Think you’re up for the task?

Amid fierce competition with Cisco Systems and Hewlett-Packard for partner attention, Juniper has shifted the date of its J-Partner Summit away from rival event schedules to a more reasonable May 24-26, 2010. Smart move. Here’s why.

Parallels has launched a Cloud Services Certification Program to “help its Partners become more profitable.” The news arrives roughly two weeks before the Parallels Summit 2010 kicks off in Miami, Fla. What should partners expect in Miami? Here are some clues — involving some SaaS upstarts and some technology industry giants.

The VAR Guy was distracted by the usual stuff this week. Deadlines. Meetings. Vendor calls. And classic arcade games. Here are six blog entries The VAR Guy didn’t have a chance to write for the week ending Jan. 29, 2010.

Oracle and Apple are technology giants that have little in common. Oh, except these two items… First, today is a rather critical day for both companies. Oracle is set to discuss its Sun strategy. And Apple will allegedly unveil its Tablet computer. Second, Oracle’s CEO considered buying Apple in the mid 1990s. Here’s a look back… and a look ahead.

The image on the right hit a few privileged email inboxes yesterday. It’s part of an Apple invitation to a January 27, 2010 event. Is Steve Jobs finally ready to unveil the long-rumored Apple Tablet? Here are some educated guesses.