The VAR Guy

Wipro Technologies, the IT services arm of Indian megacorporation Wipro Limited, has announced says the company plans to actively promote Microsoft’s Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS) — which includes Exchange Online, SharePoint Online and other SaaS applications. The news comes less than a week after Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said he was betting the company on the cloud. Here’s how Wipro plans to assist Microsoft with that bet.

Apparently, there’s more money to be made in hosted applications — which is why Rackspace Hosting’s hosted solutions division is relaunching their reseller program with higher margins and more products. Here’s the deal.

Friday announcements always tend to get smothered by the weekend. On March 5th 2010 Engadget reported some interesting new details and exclusive pictures about Microsoft’s dual-screen tablet, dubbed Courier. It’s got a lot of work-horse potential and productivity power. Here’s the scoop…

When the Open Source Business Conference starts March 17 in San Francisco, The VAR Guy will be watching and listening closely for signs of corporate open source momentum from upstarts like Canonical and giants like Microsoft, Oracle and even SAP. Yes, Microsoft, Oracle and SAP. Here are five trends to anticipate at the OSBC conference.

In a speech to the student body University of Washington, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer elucidated the promises and perils of the cloud, shedding some light on Microsoft’s cloud strategy.  Gizmodo’s got the blow-by-blow – here’s a recap and our take.

Microsoft is getting ready to roll out Visual Studio 2010, the latest version of their pedigreed software development environment on April 12. If you’re a developer upgrading from an older version of Visual Studio, Microsoft has some good news for you. And if you’re looking into buying the professional edition at retail, there’s even better news — it’ll include 20 hours of Windows Azure. Interested?

Second verse, same as the first: cloud security continued to be a major theme at the second day of the RSA  Conference in San Francisco. Here are the highlights…

At the SAP Partner Summit in Las Vegas, Business Objects partners expressed optimism about business intelligence opportunities for 2010, though some partners are keeping close tabs on BI moves by Oracle and open source upstarts like Pentaho and Jaspersoft. Here’s the chatter.

Public institutions are looking into the cloud as a money-saving maneuver, and rightly so. Now Microsoft is breaking into that market with the unveiling of BPOS Federal, a version of its hosted online collaboration and productivity suite with enhanced security aimed at filling the needs of the federal government. Here’s what VARs should know.

If you’re a VAR leveraging Microsoft’s Windows Azure and you’ve been using their SQL Azure server, good news: SQL Azure Database Service Update 1 is now live. Here’s what it adds.

Alteva claims to be the largest provider of enterprise hosted voice-over-IP (VoIP) providers in North America, so it’s no wonder that the company’s newly-announced porting capabilities for international numbers is rolling out in Canada first. But thanks to a strategic partnership with Microsoft, phone calls are only part of the hosted telephony solution they can offer VARs. Here’s the deal.

It’s finally here, Windows Mobile 7, or as it more colloquially wants to be known: Windows Phone 7 Series. It doesn’t really roll off the tongue and it’s not exactly the seventh series of any kind of Windows Phone, but that’s what they’re sticking with. So what’s the scoop on the new dialer from Redmond? Well, it all started at the Mobile World Congress 2010 in Barcelona…

Full disclosure: When I’m not digging into the cloud market for The VAR Guy, I play a lot of video games. That said, Kotaku, a game hobbyist blog, was the last place I ever expected to hit on what could be the next big trend for Microsoft partners serving the health care vertical: Microsoft’s Xbox 360 video game console. Sure, this requires some explanation. So here we go.

It’s a thing of beauty when two major vendors collaborate to offer a solution that actually provides such value that it can practically sell itself. In theory, Polycom and Microsoft just may have done exactly that. The UC vendor and software behemoth have joined forces to offer Polycom Conferencing for Outlook, a unified communications service that integrates with Microsoft Exchange and Outlook to incorporate voice and video conferencing into meetings. Here are the details.

Apple says their new iPhone update is going to be killer. Google’s Android Phone and OS proliferating is catching on like wild-fire. New rumors point to some groovy stuff for Microsoft’s Windows Mobile 7 experience. But the real story involves Steve Jobs’ preoccupation with Google. Here are the 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?

Microsoft is marching deeper into health care and the electronic medical records (EMR) market. The software giant has completed its buyout of Sentillion Inc., a private company that specialized in health-care software. Here’s a quick look at the deal and the implications for VARs.

When Microsoft delivered record quarterly results last week, at least some of the credit belonged to Jane Boulware, general manager of Microsoft’s Windows Client business. Boulware (pictured) previously held top marketing posts for MSN and Kimberly-Clark Corp., the consumer goods giant. Now, she drives Windows marketing. So where is Boulware taking Windows marketing next? She offers some perspectives in this FastChat video.

Let’s clarify that headline a little: Windows Azure has been available through an extended technology preview for several months. Today, though, Microsoft’s new cloud computing platform debuts as a full, paid service. Here’s what VARs need to know.

Microsoft is seeking feedback as it prepares to officially launch the Windows Azure cloud on February 1. Specifically, the software giant has launched MyGreatWindowsAzureIdea.com as a forum for user, developer and partner feedback. Hardly surprising: Ideas are flowing into the forum fast. And some of the top submissions involve Azure pricing. Here are some details.

Back in mid-2009, The VAR Guy’s blog team openly wondered if 2010 would be the year of desktop virtualization. Perhaps that’s hyping VDI (virtual desktop infrastructure) a bit. But the momentum continues: Unidesk, which develops virtual desktop management software, has raised $12 million in Series B venture capital funding. Here’s some analysis.

That headline might go a little far, but Microsoft has announced plans to hold workshops across the United States to educate VARs and other IT pros about what Windows Azure is, what it can do, and how best to deploy it.  It seems like the closer we get to the February 1 grand opening of Azure, the more eager Microsoft is to push their new cloud platform.

One of the little gizmos floating around CES 2010 this year was the Dell Mini 5. It’s not a netbook like the Mini 9, but a touch-screen tablet, of sorts. While 5  inches seems a little small for the tablet, it’s got some interesting potential. Read on to see how Dell is adapting to some new trends in the Linux world — even as the PC giant balances its Windows 7 relationship with Microsoft.