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.

The Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) battle is getting aggressive. The latest move involves Microsoft and Citrix ganging up against VMware, hoping to switch VMware customers over to VDI solutions that leverage Microsoft and Citrix virtualization technologies. Microsoft is also changing its Windows licensing model to potentially speed VDI deployments. Here’s the scoop.

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.

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.

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.

Sure, hardware and software companies have built numerous portals for their channel partners. Some are big hits. Others are ugly misses. But here’s a twist: Laurus Technologies,  a Certified Dell Partner in Itasca, Ill., has built a rather intriguing portal that could bolster customer loyalty. Here are the details.

As the big Novell BrainShare conference gets set to start on March 21, Novell’s board of directors is considering an unsolicited offer for the company. But here’s the twist: More software developers seem to be flocking to Novell’s SUSE Linux platform — at a time when Novell’s ownership status could potentially change. Here’s why partners seem to be flocking to SUSE Linux.

The Oracle vs. SAP battle has spilled over into social media, where the two software giants are taking decidedly different approaches to engaging channel partners. Here’s a look at each strategy and key milestones so far.

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.

Data centers are popping up across the country as a never-ending stream of new Internet applications strain the nation’s information storage capabilities. Worldwide demand for data centers is expected to rise 12 percent just this year, and 17 percent in 2012, according to Tieri Research. How can VARs grab their share of the data center opportunity? Here are some suggestions.

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:

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.

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.

It’s been less than a month since VMware officially acquired Zimbra — the open source email platform — from Yahoo. But VMware isn’t standing still. Jim Morrisroe, VP and GM of VMware’s Zimbra division, says the company is preparing software appliances that combine virtualization with Zimbra. They should arrive by Q2 2010. Plus, VMware’s channel will soon promote Zimbra offerings. But that’s not all…

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.

Microsoft Channel Chief Allison Watson, in a FastChat Video with The VAR Guy, explains how VARs and managed services providers can potentially profit from Microsoft’s cloud offerings. But that’s not all…

Red Hat already focuses on Linux, JBoss middleware and virtualization. But there are multiple signs the open source company will make a business intelligence move soon. And Red Hat’s move could involve either Jaspersoft or EnterpriseDB — or both. Here’s some analysis, some speculation and some potential implications for Red Hat’s channel partners.

If the RSA Security Conference wasn’t enough to convince you that cloud-based security products are ready for primetime, Panda Security, which bills itself as capital-T The Cloud Security company, announced that it’s experienced 122% growth in its software-as-a-service (SaaS) endpoint protection product line. Here’s the scoop.

Open source software companies continue to strengthen their channel partner programs. The latest example involves SugarCRM’s new Open+ Partner Program. But SugarCRM isn’t alone. The VAR Guy has a hunch that several open source partner program announcements will surface this week. Here are the details.

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.

Wireless mobile giant Motorola has launched their PartnerEmpower Channel Program. Officially, the Motorola PartnerEmpower Program (PEP)  brings together all of Motorola Enterprise Mobility Solutions (EMS) partners “under a single channel program framework.” Here are additional perspectives from Motorola Channel Chief Janet Schijns (pictured).