The VAR Guy

Most folks are focusing on Cisco Systems’ consumer electronics push this week. But The VAR Guy is keeping one eye on the data center — where Cisco apparently is preparing to launch blade servers. If true, our resident blogger wonders: How soon will Cisco speed dial Red Hat, MySQL, Novell, SugarCRM and other open source application providers?

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).

During a gathering of channel media in Portugal, Cisco Systems has so far made two major announcements. First up, the company unveiled a global partner collaboration strategy that allows VARs to become sales agents for one another. Next up, Cisco announced a $100 million initiative focused on small businesses with fewer than 100 employees. Here’s the scoop.

Time and distance prevented The VAR Guy from attending the 2008 Cisco Partner Summit in Hawaii. But The VAR Guy won’t have any excuses for skipping the 2009 Cisco Partner Summit, which will be held June 1-4 in Boston, our resident blogger has learned.

The VAR Guy has a headache. He was just getting used to the shift from gigabytes to terabytes … and now Cisco Systems is talking about zettabytes (otherwise known as 1,000 exabytes). So, what exactly is a zettabyte? And can The VAR Guy get that on his thumb drive? Here are some answers…