The VAR Guy

The VAR Guy suspects most CA employees — and most VARs — had never heard of Nimsoft before today. But CA’s $350 million buyout of Nimsoft represents a dramatic wake-up call for channel partners and big software companies (um, did somebody say Microsoft?) across the globe. Here’s why.

For the second consecutive quarter, Wall Street wasn’t impressed with Dell’s financial performance, but the hardware giant seems to be making continued progress with channel partners. Dell Channel Chief Greg Davis and other team members gave The VAR Guy a few updates today. Take a look.

Will the real Dell please stand up? Following yesterday’s quarterly financial statement, Wall Street is bearish on Dell today. Still, Dell Channel Chief Greg Davis sounds bullish about the company’s partner program. Here are some observations.

I spent some time on the phone June 5, learning how Frontpoint (a managed service provider) supports Global Medical Staffing (a 40-person small business). If you’d like to learn about their business relationship — directly from Frontpoint CEO Dan Stanford and Global Medical Staffing COO Alan Lakomski — then join us for next MSPmentor Live webcast, scheduled for June 10 at 2:00pm eastern.

The VAR Guy’s sister site, MSPmentor, has scheduled its next managed services webcast. The June 10 event will focus on Hardware at Your Service. We’ll welcome your managed services questions throughout the one-hour event. And we’ll focus on the following mix of Technology and Business topics.

Ah, The VAR Guy isn’t a big fan of “agent” oriented partner programs, where VARs and managed service providers earn a minimal fee for reselling somebody else’s service. Still, Dell’s new ProManage-Managed Services offering includes some new twists on the old agent models. And Dell is working overtime to make sure VARs don’t consider the new nationwide (US) program a direct sales move. You can get the facts and anlysis over on The VAR Guy’s sister site, MSPmentor.

Join MSPmentor Live: Hot Seat edition on Wednesday, March 18 at 2:00 p.m. eastern. During the webcast, Dell will answer at least 30 attendee questions about the company’s managed services strategy. Feel free to pose questions about MSP certifications, training, sales, go-to-market strategies, and so on. Dell will also provide some clues about the company’s forthcoming managed print services initiative. Register now. Full disclosure: Dell is sponsoring the event but taking attendee questions throughout.

Gateway, the PC industry veteran owned by Acer, has re-launched as a channel-only brand in Europe and is planning a managed services initiative for its channel partners.

Two top managed service providers have agreed to share their expertise with you during our final MSPmentor Live: CEO Exchange Webcast of 2008, scheduled for today (December 11 at 2:00 p.m. eastern). Here are details about the event, hosted by MSPmentor — The VAR Guy’s sister site.

Two top managed service providers have agreed to share their expertise with you during our final MSPmentor Live: CEO Exchange Webcast of 2008, scheduled for Dec. 11 at 2:00 p.m. eastern. Here are the details about the event, hosted by MSPmentor — The VAR Guy’s sister site.

Talk about a market disruption. In some scenarios, GroundWork Open Source says the company’s IT monitoring software costs 82-percent less than Hewlett-Packard Operations Manager and Network Node Manager. Apparently, Hewlett-Packard is fuming mad over the price comparison.

At first glance, IBM has won a massive $873 million outsourcing contract with the State of Georgia. But The VAR Guy took a closer look and discovered Dell Managed Services will also cash in on the engagement. A trusted source says the contract ranks as one of Dell’s largest managed services and Software as a Service (SaaS) deals to date.

Microsoft has reached out to selected solutions providers in order to gain their feedback about a soon-to-be-launched software product in an emerging market. Hmmm. What could the software giant be up to? It involves so-called managed services software. Here’s the scoop.

When The VAR Guy heads to CompTIA Breakaway, he’ll be sure to poke around to see what Dell’s up to at the show. In the meantime, here’s some color commentary regarding Dell and its managed service strategy from our sister site, MSPmentor.