The VAR Guy

Sometimes, investors have the right to attack Novell. But this time around, at least one financial analyst firm seems to be beating up on Novell for a rather foolish reason. Here’s the scoop, from The VAR Guy.

Once again, the IT pundits were wrong. Lots of “experts” said the video conferencing and TelePresence industries would enjoy a boom during the economic bust. The reasoning: Executives are cutting business travel to save money, and opting instead for video conferencing and TelePresence. But here’s the problem: Not all video conferencing companies are built equally. Consider the situation of Polycom (a big, established player) vs. LifeSize Communications (a nimble start-up).

The VAR Guy has spent the last two years evangelizing software as a service (SaaS) and open source as a killer combination that VARs need to master. But now Trip Chowdhry from Global Equities Research says SaaS and open source companies will suffer greatly amid the economic turmoil. Here are Chowdhry’s perspectives and The VAR Guy’s observations.

Forgive The VAR Guy for saying it: But he told you so. A few months ago our resident blogger predicted Netbooks — the name for an emerging market of sub-notebooks — would increasingly shift to open source and put the squeeze on Microsoft. Fast forward to the present, and Microsoft is already feeling the heat from Netbooks. Here’s the scoop.

Goldman Sachs is telling investors to dump their stock in Computer Sciences Corp. (CSC) and Sapient, according to Barron’s. The reason: Both consulting firms rely far too heavily on financial services customers, which are too beat up to spend much on IT this year. Roughly 17% of CSC’s revenue and 28% of Sapient’s revenue come from financial services firms. As a result, Goldman has a “sell” rating on both CSC and Sapient.

The VAR Guy picked up the phone and dialed Sun Microsystems Inc.’s investor relations department. When the call went to voicemail, he left this message: “Are the rumors true? Is Sun seeking to replace CEO Jonathan Schwartz?” Here’s more on the rumor, and The VAR Guy’s depressing reaction to it.

Perhaps it is possible to fly below Cisco Systems’ radar, and succeed in the networking market. Just ask the folks over at Adtran, which attracted positive comments from Morgan Stanley on July 7, notes Barron’s.

If you have any doubt about Apple’s continued momentum, check out the company’s unit Mac sales for May — which jumped more than 50 percent. Somebody call Mel Brooks. Apple’s momentum has accelerated passed Ludicrous speed. Steve Jobs has gone to Plaid. Here’s why.