The VAR Guy

You already know IBM is pursuing Sun Microsystems’ customer base. But here’s a twist: Red Hat and its channel partners seem to be helping IBM pursue Sun’s customers. It’s all part of a fierce, sometimes emotional battle between Red Hat and the Oracle-Sun camp. Here’s the scoop, from The VAR Guy.

Strange: Most IT consulting blogs have overlooked or ignored Satyam’s recent meltdown. The Indian IT outsourcing firm imploded earlier this month after a botched acquisition involving company insiders. But the story doesn’t end there.

Yes, The VAR Guy knows Bill Gates has left Microsoft. But now that Billionaire Bill is gone, IBM and Canonical are trying to destroy the very software empire he built. Specifically, IBM, Canonical and Virtual Bridges have launched a low-cost, virtualized Ubuntu Linux build for big — really big — corporate customers. No, this won’t kill Microsoft. But the IBM move is a big-time attack on Windows and Office. Here’s the scoop, along with the implications for Microsoft, Novell and Red Hat.

In our “winner take all” society, The VAR Guy is starting to wonder: Can open source companies like Concursive, Compiere and EnterpriseDB ever escape from the shadows of their larger and more successful rivals (SugarCRM and MySQL)? Before you answer, consider these lessons.

Software competition on the desktop continues to increase. The latest example includes Lotus Symphony, a free IBM software suite that could give Microsoft Office a run for its money in selected business settings.  After introducing Symphony as a free Internet download last year, IBM is now back — offering annual Symphony support contracts at the flat rate of $25,000. Suite! Er, sweet! Here’s why.

Sun Microsystems’ MySQL is the database to beat in the open source market. But another option — EnterpriseDB — has caught the attention of several investors — including IBM. Here’s the scoop for potential partners.

When the next version of Ubuntu Linux ships in April, there’s a reasonable chance that server vendors could start jumping on the Ubuntu bandwagon by May or so. Here’s the scoop.