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.

Yes, Sun is acquiring MySQL for $1 billion. But Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz isn’t done modernizing his company. Not by a long shot. The VAR Guy isn’t ready to predict which company Sun will acquire next, but he has noticed Schwartz getting pretty darn cozy with two fast-growing open source businesses.

Okay, the headline is a bit dramatic. But the Sun-MySQL business combo makes The VAR Guy wonder: Will Novell wake up and start buying open source application providers … or is Novell doomed to repeat the exact same mistakes it made in the 1990s? Alas, Novell in 2008 looks a lot like Novell from a decade ago. That’s not good. Here’s why.

Boy, sometimes The VAR Guy is ahead of his time. During a conference in Colorado Springs earlier this week, The VAR Guy asked Sun officials when the company was going to dump its current ticker symbol (”SUNW”). Workstations (the “W”) haven’t been Sun’s primary focus for more than a decade. The VAR Guy figured a change was in order. How right he was. Sun today announced plans to change its stock symbol to “JAVA” on August 27. Smart move. Or was it?

Profitable growth. Those two words sum up Sun Microsystems’ goals for the next two years. The company — which recently began its fiscal year 2008 — is striving to more than double its Americas channel sales to $7 billion by 2010, according to Tom Wagner, VP for partner sales, Americas at Sun.

The VAR Guy has spent considerable time discussing voice-over-IP this week during conferences in New York and Colorado Springs. Here are five key moves VoIP solution providers need to make, based on separate chats with executives from Avnet, SugarCRM and Sun Microsystems, among other companies.

Talk about smart product placement. Sun Microsystems has donated a few dozen Sun Ray 270 thin clients for attendees to use at a major Avnet partner conference in Colorado Springs. The VAR Guy took one of the thin clients for a spin this morning. Not bad.

Sun Microsystems is falling for CNBC’s Jim Cramer. During a conference in Colorado Springs today, Sun noted that the press is beginning to write positive stories about the company. So, where’s all that positive coverage? A glowing cover story in Fortune? Nope. A nice interview in BusinessWeek? Not quite. Instead, Sun points to Jim Cramer’s blog. So much for old media, folks.

After spending recent years opening up its software and embracing x86 hardware, Sun executives say the company is back. The VAR Guy remains skeptical, but here are five reasons why the company could attract stronger interest from partners and customers.