The VAR Guy

When you think Barcelona, Spain, you’re either thinking killer vacation or Mobile World Congress. But surprisingly, The VAR Guy is thinking about Windows 8, too. Microsoft has sent an official invitation to certain members of the press to come check out the Windows 8 Consumer Preview at special event during Mobile World Congress. Our resident blogger is intrigued, but will he be packing his bags? Read on …

F5 Networks continues to build out its virtualization prowess — fresh on the heels of its video tutorial portal for VMware View news, the company announced its BIG-IP products now support a wide swath of existing VDI infrastructure technology. Can you say “optimization”?

The mobile world is dominating every nook and cranny of the rest of the IT world. Another shining example: Microsoft has announced that Microsoft Dynamics CRM will be coming to a tablet near you, sometime in Q2 2012. If analyzing your business analytics on the go is a priority, then get excited for this …

Microsoft Office 15, otherwise known as Microsoft Office 2012, will be arriving soon, but it’s still not quite ready for prime time. That’s why Microsoft has launched what it termed “an important development milestone,” the “technical preview” of Office 15. Here’s what we expect …

The Building Windows 8 blog claims Windows 8 to be the friendliest version of Windows yet, and the latest improvement is a complete overhaul to the Windows 8 wireless experience. If Wi-Fi and mobile broadband connections once stressed you out, Windows 8 promises it won’t any longer. Read on for the details …

More than a year ago users lamented at the loss of the Windows Home Server Drive Extender feature, which allowed users to continually add drives to a singular storage pool to virtually create one giant drive. Now, Windows 8 is bringing it back with a vengeance. Dubbed Storage Spaces, the new feature in Windows 8 will give everybody room to grow …

Data mobility software provider AutoVirt has gone out of business just months after the company launched its channel partner program for value-added resellers (VARs), original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and system integrators (SIs).

If you’re like me, you spend a considerable amount of time fixing Windows PCs and convincing family and friends to make their next computer a Mac. And if you’re like me, most family and friends don’t listen. But Windows 8 is looking to turn those hours of troubleshooting into a few short minutes of “refreshing” your PC, which may make my argument moot. Here’s how it works …

It’s a new year, and LibreOffice — the office productivity suite forked from OpenOffice.org  — is the new face of open source productivity software. Or is it? And more importantly, will it remain so as OpenOffice is reborn under the Apache Foundation? Here are some thoughts on what to expect on this front in 2012.

Welcome to 2012. The first IT trend of the New Year:  Many high-tech companies enter 2012 with new or recently named CEOs (examples include AMD, Apple, Google, Hewlett-Packard and IBM). Plus, a lengthy list of prominent CEOs (representing Cisco Systems, Dell, Microsoft, Oracle and Research in Motion) are under pressure to boost sales, profits and channel partner success. Here’s what channel partners should expect.

Of all the arguments that surface during holiday gatherings, the last one I expected to become wrapped up in this season was over whether dual computer monitors are a worthwhile investment. But that was indeed what my geeky family members and I fought over the other day. And since no one agreed with me that they’re not worthy of the investment, I’d like to take this opportunity to make my case to a broader, more enlightened audience, namely The VAR Guy’s readers.

Microsoft is calling it quits at CES. After the January 2012 event, Microsoft announced it no longer will be a major player in the annual consumer electronics show. Why is Microsoft is pulling out, and more importantly, does it matter? Here’s the rundown …

AMD has been having performance issues with its new Bulldozer CPUs, and a fix by Microsoft had to be abandoned before it could do any good. What’s the story? Read on and find out.

Microsoft is taking the model learned from the successes and mistakes of app stores of past (including the Windows Phone Marketplace) and applying them to the brand new Windows 8 Windows Store. It’s a little something borrowed, a little something new, and it has a lot of potential to shake up the tablet space. Here’s the scoop …

It’s not quite on the order of Microsoft Office, but Microsoft has been releasing a variety of applications in an effort to appeal to the iOS crowd. We’ve already covered the vendor’s efforts with Bing, and more recently Microsoft released OneNote for the iPad. Now from Microsoft is a version of SkyDrive for the iPhone. What does that mean for the mobile world as a whole? Good things …

An interesting guest post from Microsoft over at VMWare’s blog suggests 2012 will be the first year that the cloud “moves from a buzzword to a reality.” Microsoft’s director for Virtualization and Cloud Strategy, Edwin Yuen, detailed the ways companies can achieve this goal, and of course, there’s some channel perspective, brought to you by The VAR Guy himself. Here’s the scoop …

Linux’s ability to run on old or budget hardware has long been a popular talking point among free software advocates. Yet in recent years, the system requirements of mainstream desktop Linux distributions have been skyrocketing. At the same time, Windows 8 is slated to demand fewer resources than its predecessors. What could this mean for Linux? Here are some thoughts.

Not too long ago Microsoft shipped me another loaner phone to test out Windows Phone 7 Mango. Well, it’s been put through its paces again, and this time, it’s definitely improved. But Windows Phone 7 still isn’t without its quirks. Read on for the re-review of Microsoft’s mobile smartphone operating system …

Do you have an iOS or Android device and would like to know what using Windows Phone 7 feels like? If you do, you’re in luck. Microsoft has launched a very interesting HTML5 demo to bring Windows Phone 7 into your mobile browser for an immersive experience. But just how immersive is it?

Kudos to Forrester Research for stating the obvious: Windows 8 tablets will face an uphill battle when they arrive in 2012 or so. Many research firms don’t have the guts to publicly question Microsoft. Still, it’s far too early to dismiss Microsoft’s Windows 8 tablet strategy. And Microsoft still has plenty of opportunity to prove Forrester wrong. Here’s why.

How many people enjoy installing an operating system? The answer is probably none, especially when it comes to installing Windows. But Microsoft is working to get rid of its famous multistep-installation mayhem in Windows 8, and the Building Windows 8 blog revealed what Microsoft is doing to making upgrading to Windows 8 as easy as possible. Read on for the details …

One of the reasons why I favor Mac OS X over Windows is the Microsoft Windows Update. I don’t think I’ve ever turned on my PC without being greeted with the message, “Windows has downloaded new updates,” forcing me to delay what I needed to do to install the updates, then reboot. Again. Well, Microsoft has heard the collective sighs and it’s working to make Windows 8 a lot more friendly when it comes to endless updates and patch Tuesdays. Here’s how it works …

They’re finally here, the legendary Nokia Windows Phone 7.5 “Mango” phones. They’ve only just entered the market (and only in Europe), but what can we expect and what does the future of Windows Phone 7 look like? Tech specs and analysis are coming right up …