The VAR Guy

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 is usually skeptical of software acquisitions. But IBM’s $5 billion buyout of Cognos, the business intelligence specialist, makes perfect sense. Here are four reasons why the pending deal, announced today, is a good fit for IBM.

Another business intelligence specialist has been acquired, and this time Oracle wasn’t the company opening its wallet. It’s time for Business Objects to say goodbye to its independence. The buyer is SAP AG. The big question: What does the deal mean for Cognos, MicroStrategy and SAS — three of the larger business intelligence companies that remain independent.