The VAR Guy

Maybe Oracle CEO Larry Ellison is a miracle worker. Or maybe Ellison somehow sold his soul to revitalize Sun Microsystems’ business. Either way, Oracle’s hardware product gross margins are rising — yes, rising — amid strong channel demand for Exadata and Exalogic solutions. Indeed, Oracle’s quarterly revenues rose 37 percent to $8.8 billion, while net income rose 78% to $2.1 billion, fueled in part by Exadata and Exalogic sales. Here’s the update.

It looks like Big Blue may be trying to counter the VCE (VMware, Cisco, EMC) world with its latest ‘standardized’ approach in the marketplace. IBM’s new Pre-Engineered Technology Service Model aims bring a streamlined, one-stop shop approach to its services and solutions. The goal is to provide a quicker, more robust and less expensive near-turnkey offering than traditional multi-vendor deployments have in the past. So what is IBM’s end game? Read on for some perspective.

Intel is aiming to be part of the cloud frontier with its new free unified networking technology that will enable data center traffic to run over one single cable. Translation? Consolidation of cable equipment and infrastructure. Read on for some implications for MSPs and VARs managing their data centers …

Storage system specialist Nexsan has announced that 25-year industry veteran Victoria Grey will be taking over as VP of Marketing, putting her in charge of global corporate and channel marketing efforts. Here are some quick details:

Even as FalconStor Software investigates alleged wrongdoings by its former CEO, the storage software specialist continues to march forward. Only a few weeks after announcing a managed services relationship with Hewlett-Packard, FalconStor is back in this news, this time disclosing that Brendan Kinkade is now VP of channel management and global alliances. In his new role, Kinkade will be overseeing FalconStor’s relationships with resellers of their disk protection solutions as well as alliances with other companies to increase their reach. Here’s the scoop.

Cisco and VMware are joining forces to provide a virtual desktop solution with “channel initiatives” to help accelerate Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) deployments. The plan is based on Cisco’s Unified Computing System and VMware View 4.5. Will the incentives attract more channel partners to the VDI discussion? Read on for the details…

IT infrastructure giant EMC Corp. is buying storage specialist Isilon for approximately $2.25 billion. The deal should be finished by the end of the calendar year, and will see Isilon act as an independent subsidiary of EMC. Here are some details.

Westcon Group, know for specialty distribution in the fields of data, networking and security, has launched a “LEAP” effort that’s focused on virtualization and cloud infrastructure solutions, complete with VAR training. Read on for the potential implications.

The VAR Guy has applied some polish to the SaaS 20 Stock Index, which tracks trends across SaaS and cloud computing stocks. From January 2010 through the end of July 2010, the SaaS 20 Stock Index has risen nearly 8 percent, despite a 1 percent drop for the week ending July 30, 2010. Plus, some new companies are in the index. Here’s a look at the latest SaaS 20 Stock Index winners, losers and cloud computing updates.

SANpulse Technologies, Inc., which provides storage migration and data center consolidation solutions for large enterprises, is boasting some impressive numbers for the first half of 2010 — including 280% revenue growth in Q1 and Q2 from last year. Here’s the scoop.

Yesterday was Day 4 of the RSA Security Conference in San Francisco, and U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano stole the show by challenging the private sector and individuals alike to come up with a way to educate the public on the necessity of cybersecurity. Some details, and the rest of the fourth-day highlights behind the jump.

Cisco, NetApp, and VMWare have joined forces. And what births forth from this trifecta? An effort to improve virtualization security. Dubbed “secure multi-tenancy design architecture,” its basic job is to show clients how to pinpoint applications that use the same physical network, server and storage resources in huge networks and adjust resources correctly. Here’s a little more info…

Riverbed, known for its  WAN optimization hardware, is launching new partnerships with US Distributors and networking with global resellers. Here are some quick details.

Iomega, of ZipDisk fame, is trying to write a new chapter in mobile computing. If you get really attached to your working environment, you might wish you could drag your PC with you, but that’s not always practical. VPN is nice, but not always available. And sometimes… even a laptop doesn’t meet your needs. You’re just looking for something easier. Iomega’s new vClone technology apparently lets you do a brain-transplant on whatever PC you wish. Bring your comfy computing environment anywhere by using a simple USB hard drive. Sound too good to be true? It almost is. Here’s the scoop:

The VAR Guy spent another week chasing (and missing) a few deadlines. Even with his growing staff, our resident blogger didn’t quite cover all the channel chatter this week. Here are six blog posts The VAR Guy didn’t write for the week ending Dec. 11, 2009.

The VAR Guy has spent a few days digesting recent developments from Cisco, EMC and VMware. The trio, as you may have heard, have teamed up and unleashed a cloud effort dubbed “Vblock.” Hmmm. What are the implications for channel partners? Take a look.

Linux redefined pricing in the operating system market. Now, Zmanda hopes to apply those same open source pricing pressures in the backup market. Zmanda claims that its backup system costs one-fifth to one-tenth as much as alternatives from Symantec and EMC. But is open source backup — at any price — ready for the enterprise?

Is the party over at VMware and the virtualization market? Yes and no. In a surprise move, former Microsoft executive Paul Maritz has been named president and CEO of VMware, replacing ousted co-founder Diane Greene.