The VAR Guy

The VAR Guy is packing his bags this evening for a trip to San Francisco. But before he embarks on this latest road trip here are six channel partner blogs The VAR Guy didn’t write for the week ending May 6, 2011.

The VAR Guy is feeling a bit stung this evening. Maybe it’s the cold weather. Maybe it’s lack of sleep. Either way, our resident blogger is in catch-up mode. So here are six channel partner blog entries The VAR Guy didn’t find time to write for the week ending January 14, 2011.

The VAR Guy had a lengthy conversation with Microsoft Channel Chief Jon Roskill (pictured) today. The call marks roughly six months since the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference 2010. During the discussion, Roskill offered some timely updates on Microsoft’s cloud, virtualization, CRM and channel partner strategies. Most of the points included key business milestones — including alleged competitive gains vs. VMware and Salesforce.com. Still,  Microsoft faces some key challenges. Here’s the scoop.

The VAR Guy and his team have been busy with some R&D projects in recent weeks. Plenty of new developments to potentially share soon. But in the meantime, here are six blogs The VAR Guy didn’t have a chance to write for the week ending Dec. 3, 2010.

The VAR Guy stumbled onto plenty of news and chatter at the Rackspace Partner Leadership Summit, which kicked off today in San Antonio, Texas. The chatter involves some imminent OpenStack news, an expanded Rackspace channel team, and growing cloud relationships with such firms as Ingram Micro and Dell. Here’s the scoop… including the top seven highlights from Rackspace Partner Leadership Summit 2010, Day 1.

Open source isn’t anything new in the channel. But an open source ERP suite provided by a 100% channel company that offers its resellers 90% margins across the board? That’s got The VAR Guy’s interest. And now OpenERP has announced they’ve signed up partners in 17 new countries — and opened their first US outpost in Silicon Valley. Here are some details.

Same story, different week: The VAR Guy is packing his bags for yet another trade show (CompTIA Breakaway). And as usual, our resident blogger has more chatter to share with you but time is short. Here are six channel partner blog entries The VAR Guy and his team didn’t have time to write for the week ending Aug. 6, 2010.

What do software developers, VARs, and managed services providers all have in common? They’re all trying to figure out how to make recurring revenue models work. NetSuite, a highly visible cloud ERP solution vendor, and cloud billing specialists Zuora, have announced a partnership designed to give the IT channel an answer. Here’s the scoop.

Microsoft has declared this to be Dynamics Business Week. The software giant is hosting a series of online conversations centered around their CRM solution and the overall sales cycle. We hear from plenty of VARs that continue to profit from Microsoft Dynamics. But it seems like Microsoft also faces rising CRM and ERP competition from folks like NetSuite, Salesforce.com and SugarCRM. Here are some quick observations.

Cancel the funeral and send back the burial flowers. Reports or SAP’s demise are largely exaggerated, according to the company’s channel team. Sure, much of the media continues to raise questions about SAP’s business performance. But Kevin Gilroy (pictured), VP of SAP’s North American SMB partner effort, says SAP is winning roughly 25 new customer deals per day. And Gilroy is preparing some channel moves to help SAP partners “rip out” Oracle solutions and put in SAP. Will the strategy work? Here’s some perspective from the show floor at SAP Sapphire in Orlando, Fla.

SAP is preparing a channel partner program for Business ByDesign, the company’s fledgling SaaS (software as a service) platform for midsize customers. Here are details, which The VAR Guy gathered at the SAP Sapphire conference in Orlando.

Microsoft Business Division President Stephen Elop and Corporate VP of Microsoft Business Solutions Kirill Tatarinov kicked off the Convergence 2010 conference in Atlanta by showing off the features that Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online will be getting when the May 2010 update releases – including integration with Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010. Here’s the scoop.

The VAR Guy is losing sleep, gaining weight, aging fast and always running out of time. But that’s okay… because site traffic continues to surge. Still, our resident blogger wishes he had more hours in the day to write even more blogs. In fact, here are six channel partner blog entries The VAR Guy didn’t have time to write for the week ending February 5, 2010.

7. Open Channel: Pentaho, the open source BI specialist, says its OEM partner program grew 146 percent in the second half of 2009. CEO Richard Daley recently told The VAR Guy he expects Pentaho to double bookings in 2010.

6. What Conflict?: When McAfee announced Security Quickstart Services for small and midsize customers, the company was smart to quote a channel partner in the press release. However, some observers think Quickstart is primarily a direct sales push into the SMB market. The Quickstart website sure looks like a direct sales pitch. The VAR Guy still needs to give McAfee equal time on the matter.

5. Why So Quiet?: The VAR Guy noted earlier this week that Unison Communications — a fledgling unified communications company — has been pretty darn quiet in recent months. One potential reason: Former CTO Igor Balk apparently moved on to a startup called PMP HQ.

4. The Bad and the Good: Investors weren’t impressed with NetSuite‘s latest SaaS revenues. Perhaps SaaS and cloud aren’t living up to the hype? But NetSuite is quick to point to continued wins involving SAP customer defections.

3. Join the Party: XO Communications is now a supplier member to 1nService, an international community of advanced technology integrators. Also of note: An emerging relationship between 1nService and NeuronGlobal. The VAR Guy will explain why next week.

2. Friday’s Fatal Distraction: Scroll down to the bottom-right of this web page. No quarters required. A new fatal distraction will debut each Friday. Enjoy.

1. Check the Headline: If you know The VAR Guy, you know he doesn’t play by the rules. There is no #1 on this list, because it’s a top six list.

As Oracle OpenWorld 2009 kicks off today in San Francisco, Channel Chief Judson Althoff (pictured) and several other Oracle team members are talking up the company’s SaaS (software as a service) strategy for channel partners and ISVs (independent software vendors). Here’s the scoop.

The worst of times have turned into the best of times for software as a service (SaaS) stocks. After a horrid performance in 2008, SaaS stocks rallied nearly 30 percent during the first half of 2009, according to Nine Lives Media Inc.’s SaaS 20 Stock Index. Here’s a look at the SaaS leaders to date…

NetSuite Channel Chief Craig West has two messages for aspiring SaaS (Software as a Service) partners. First, NetSuite’s SaaS partners are earning 30 to 50 percent recurring revenue margins. Second, NetSuite is planning a partner summit. Here’s the scoop from The VAR Guy.

After a depressing 2008, software as a service stocks continue to rally in 2009. The latest example: Our SaaS 20 Stock Index rose 3.45 percent for the week ending April 10, and the index is up 8.68 percent since the start of 2009. Here’s a quick look at the SaaS industry’s year-to-date winners and losers.

CompTIA (the Computing Technology Industry Association) and its SoftwareCEO portal have issued a research report showing a substantial drop in high-tech mergers, acquisitions and IPOs. The stats didn’t surprise The VAR Guy. But the findings are a timely, interesting read nonetheless. When will the high-tech IPO market improve? The VAR Guy offers a guess — along with a look at three companies poised to test the IPO waters.

Our SaaS 20 stock index, which tracks software as a service stocks, is now down more than 5 percent in 2009, having slipped a nominal 1.22 percent for the week ended January 23. Here’s a look at the weekly SaaS winners and losers.

The VAR Guy has spent the last two years evangelizing software as a service (SaaS) and open source as a killer combination that VARs need to master. But now Trip Chowdhry from Global Equities Research says SaaS and open source companies will suffer greatly amid the economic turmoil. Here are Chowdhry’s perspectives and The VAR Guy’s observations.