The VAR Guy

Red Hat grew up on Linux, but the company’s next generation of growth will involve JBoss middleware, cloud computing and virtualization. That’s the message Red Hat intends to deliver to European, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) partners in May 2010.  And again to global partners in June 2010. Here are the details.

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.

Pentaho, the open source business intelligence specialist, expects its bookings to grow roughly 100 percent in 2010, according to CEO Richard Daley (pictured). No surprise, channel partners will drive a lot of Pentaho’s growth, Daley asserts. Here’s a look at Pentaho’s business strategy, and the implications for solutions providers.

Jaspersoft CEO Brian Gentile (pictured), like many of his open source peers, has some lofty goals for 2010. With the help of SaaS and on-premise channel partners, Gentile says Jaspersoft — which specializes in business intelligence software — can grow 50 percent and generate positive cash flow in 2010. Here’s the scoop, including a FastChat video with Gentile.

Pentaho, which specializes in open source business intelligence, continues to expand its channel partner program. The latest example: Levementum, a solutions provider that frequently leverages Amazon Web Services and cloud computing, has inked an alliance with Pentaho. Here’s the scoop, and some perspectives.

Forgive The VAR Guy if he sounds like Yogi Berra today, but our resident blogger has deja vu all over again. The reason: The folks at OpenBI, a systems integrator in Chicago, have scored yet another win promoting Pentaho’s open source business intelligence software to customers. This is becoming a familiar story for OpenBI and Pentaho’s channel. Here’s the scoop.

They aren’t household names. But in the world of open source business intelligence (BI) software, Jaspersoft and Pentaho are trading some impressive blows and building out their partner programs. Here’s the scoop from The VAR Guy.

A new research report from AMI Partners reveals some promising trends in the business intelligence market. As BI sales heat up in certain regions, The VAR Guy wonders who will benefit most: Traditional BI software companies, open source alternatives or software as a service (SaaS) options? Here’s The VAR Guy’s best guess.

The VAR Guy is smiling. Another of his predictions is coming true: The emerging open source IT channel is converging with cloud services. To wit, OpenBI — a business intelligence solutions provider — is deploying applications in Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) for a health care company. Here’s the scoop.

As The VAR Guy has reported, SugarCRM veteran Lars Nordwall is now senior VP of business development at Pentaho — an open source business intelligence software company. Nordwall’s focus area includes building Pentaho’s channel partner program. The VAR Guy traded email with Nordwall to learn why he leaped to Pentaho. Here are Nordwall’s thoughts on the open source BI and the IT channel.

The VAR Guy nearly overlooked a major development in the open source IT channel: Novell and SugarCRM veteran Lars Nordwall (pictured) has made the leap to Pentaho, an open source business intelligence company. Nordwall’s move is one small step for open source VARs, and one giant leap for Pentaho. Here’s why.

The Global 2000 is nice. The Fortune 500 is very nice. But selling into the Fortune 50 — especially for a small open source company like Pentaho — is extra sweet. Pentaho, which recently launched version 2.0 of its open source business intelligence software, says it has won business with several Fortune 50 companies. And Pentaho’s partner network is expanding. Here’s the scoop.