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.

Hey Monty, who made key channel partner program deals for the week ending Aug. 14, 2009? Here’s a look at new alliances, reseller agreements and partner program initiatives, as tracked by The VAR Guy.

Here’s a look at the top 10 managed services stories making headlines on MSPmentor (The VAR Guy’s sister site) this week.

1. Managed Services Software Mergers: Who Will Fire the First Shot?
2. Contegix: Managed Services Built On Open Source
3. Kaseya, N-able Continue Australia Managed Services Expansion
4. More MSPs March Toward SAS 70
5. Zenith Infotech, Everon CEO Planning Partnership
6. How to Re-brand Yourself
7. Verizon Business SLAs: Novell Provides the Secret Sauce
8. Windows 7: MSPs Weigh In
9. Level Platforms: No Sign of Managed Services Slowdown
10. Recession Begins to Impact Managed Services Growth

Keep hanging out with The VAR Guy (he loves the company). But our resident blogger won’t be insulted if you occasionally stop by MSPmentor as well.

Here’s a look at the top 10 stories managed services stories making headlines on MSPmentor (The VAR Guy’s sister site) this week.

1. Level Platforms, Managed Services Head for Home
2. Join Us: Meet the World’s Top 100 Managed Service Providers
3. Intel Europe Confirms Managed Services, SaaS Deal With N-able
4. The Utility Company’s Franchise Model Catches On
5. Facebook: Don’t Mix Business With Pleasure?
6. Managed Services Growth Rates: Mixed Views
7. Transform Data Protection Policies Into Deeper Customer Relationships
8. Intel: Building Two Managed Services Empires?
9. N-able’s European MSP Push
10. Managed Cloud Services: Build vs. Rent

Keep hanging out with The VAR Guy (he loves the company). But our resident blogger won’t be insulted if you occasionally stop by MSPmentor as well.

The VAR Guy’s sister site — MSPmentor — offers non-stop coverage of the managed services market, where more and more VARs are generating recurring monthly revenue from customers. Here’s a look at the top 10 stories making headlines on MSPmentor this week.

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.