The VAR Guy

Microsoft has found a secret weapon in its battle against open source. The software giant will soon give college students free access to its software development tools. Assuming there are no strings attached, it’s a smart move by Microsoft. But it’s hardly unique.

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 spent most of 2007 blogging about open source start-ups and open source business models. As he looks ahead to 2008, The VAR Guy knows hundreds of open source software providers are seeking to catch on in the corporate market. Here are the top 10 open source providers and platforms that are set to succeed in 2008.

Time for The VAR Guy to stir up a little controversy, this time in the Linux desktop market. He thinks a small desktop setback at Red Hat could lead to more PC momentum for Ubuntu Linux. Here’s the scoop.

Lofty oil prices. Sub-prime mortgage woes. Financial companies (Citigroup, Etrade) stumbling badly. Ouch. Ouch. And Ouch. Whispers of a potential recession ahead continue. That made The VAR Guy wonder: If the U.S. heads into a recession soon, are open source companies better positioned to weather the storm than their closed source counterparts? Let’s take a look.

Whenever The VAR Guy hears chatter about Novell, he thinks of Avis — the Number 2 rental car company that proudly declares “We try harder” as it pursues the market leader (Hertz, er, Red Hat). Hmmm. Is 2008 the year that all of Novell’s hard work in the open source market finally pushes the company into the fast lane? UBS, the Wall Street analyst firm seems to think so. But The VAR Guy isn’t so sure.

There’s a growing body of evidence suggesting that Novell and Red Hat could soon face new competition in the Linux server market. Something new from Microsoft? Nope. Another attack from Oracle? Not quite. This time, the competition could come from tiny Canonical and the company’s latest Ubuntu Linux release.