The VAR Guy

Kaspersky Lab peppered the first day of its 2011 Americas Partner Conference in Riviera Maya, Mexico, with a slew of new product announcements and partner offerings as well as hints of upcoming technologies designed to strengthen its partners’ collective bottom line.

Juniper Networks has made its third executive appointment of the week, naming Microsoft veteran Emilio Umeoka (pictured) as senior vice president, worldwide partners, to head up the company’s global channel efforts. There’s also a side story here: Quite a few Microsoft veterans have left the software giant in recent months, even as Microsoft strives to hire 144 cloud computing experts. Here’s the update on both Juniper and Microsoft.

Amazon Consulting, a channel-focused consulting and services group led by Diane Krakora, has added to its ranks of channel heavyweights Kevin Rhone (pictured), former director of consulting for Everything Channel IPED.

Zift Solutions, which provides SaaS marketing services to companies and their channel partners, has announced the completion of a $1.5 million round of funding led by VC Kinetic Ventures. Here’s the scoop.

Eucalyptus Systems has hired Red Hat veteran Said Ziouani to serve as senior VP of worldwide sales, bringing his open source experience to the private cloud platform company. This is the second noteworthy Red Hat veteran to join another open source company in recent weeks. Ironically, Ziouani’s move comes as Eucalyptus strives to fend off open source cloud moves by Red Hat and RackSpace. Here’s how Ziouani could help Eucalyptus reach new markets.

How can solutions providers enhance their marketing strategies? Hmmm… There are dozens of options. But The VAR Guy has one standard piece of advice: Try to muscle your way into Cisco Partner Velocity, an annual marketing strategies event that’s set to return in December 2010. Here are some quick details.

Here’s an interesting tidbit out of Redmond: Microsoft is looking for “Road Warriors” to work with their New Zealand branch. The deal? Up to $43,000, but you’ll have to hustle around for four months touting the awesomeness of Office 2010 Suite. Think you’re up for the task?

You might know Dataram as that company doing a few cool things in the solid state market. Next up, Dataram is launching a new channel partner program to get more feet on the ground and take their product to market. Here’s the details…

A great inspiration came today, as it so often does, from one of my entrepreneur coaching clients: How do you make sure you reach an important goal–in this case doubling sales in the second half of the year vs. the first half? Here’s a nifty idea involving four wheels and your driveway.

How can you use a blog to generate new business opportunities and keep your clients informed? Here are four great tips to ensure your blog attracts the right clients to your business.

Want to tell the media about your company? You need an effective pitch letter that’s short, sweet and ready for email. Check out this recent pitch letter from JPR Communications, describing ProStor Systems’ growing channel program. Your PR efforts should follow JPR’s lead.