The VAR Guy

By most accounts, Red Hat Enterprise Linux and JBoss middleware are both solid successes. But can two newer initiatives — namely, Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization and OpenShift — also gain critical mass, particularly among cloud computing partners? Here are The VAR Guy’s early educated guesses.

The VAR Guy spent some time this week at an Arrow ECS (Enterprise Computing Solutions) open house in Atlanta. Free food, free advice and plenty of cloud talk. But now our resident blogger is home… catching up on email — and delivering to you the following six channel partner blog entries that he didn’t have time to write for the week ending April 22, 2011.

Some of the IT channel’s top names are huddling up this week in Chicago for CompTIA AMM — an annual membership meeting for the Computing Technology Industry Association. No doubt, CompTIA — among the best-known associations serving VARs and MSPs — has undergone some dramatic changes under CEO Todd Thibodeaux (pictured). You might even say that we’re all looking at CompTIA 3.0. Here’s why.

The channel is where it’s at, but we were wondering what’s going on with Red Hat in the channel. Luckily, Mark Enzweiler, vice president of global channels and Roger Egan, vice president of the North America channel sales and development, were happy to discuss the Linux distribution vendor’s plans for the channel in light of emerging business models around virtualization and cloud computing. Here’s the deal:

The VAR Guy is scratching his head in confusion. When our resident blogger’s web site officially launched in January 2008, open source was all the rage. And quite a few open source companies were building channel partner programs at the time. Fast forward to the present and it seems like some open source channel partner programs have gone silent — especially as cloud computing continues to generate so much freakin’ hype. But don’t lose hope. Here’s why.

Even though Nov. 20, 2010, marked Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6′s entry into the world, there’s still plenty going on with RHEL 5. Red Hat has made available RHEL 5.6, which builds upon RHEL 5′s base and continues to support customers who are using RHEL 5 through its anticipated 2014 lifecycle. Here’s what’s new…

AsteriskExchange, an online marketplace for the open source IP PBX, has attracted more than 50 partner offerings since Digium launched the exchange in January 2010. In a quick Q&A, Digium Community Director Bryan Johns offers some updates on AsteriskExchange and some partner trends involving hardware providers, ISVs (independent software vendors) and VARs. Here’s what Johns told The VAR Guy.

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.

How does Attachmate plan to manage Novell’s products and channel partner strategy? An SEC Filing dated January 3, 2011 provides some new clues. The bottom line: While Attachmate seems committed to Novell’s products and partner program, some individual brand names could change or fade away. Plus, Attachmate and Novell still need to work out when and where the Novell BrainShare conferences will be held this year. Here’s the update.

It’s December 24 and The VAR Guy needs to, um, start his holiday shopping. So, our resident blogger is cutting out just a little early today. If any really big news breaks The VAR Guy will be back with timely updates. In the meantime here are six channel partner blogs The VAR Guy didn’t find time to write for the week ending December 24, 2010.

The VAR Guy and his team spent most of this week sprinting through a marathon. Launching a sister site, called TalkinCloud, required some heavy lifting. But there’s no cause for alarm: Reinforcements are on the way. In the meantime, here are six channel partner blog entries The VAR Guy didn’t have a chance to write for the week ending Dec. 10, 2010.

Cisco Systems has partnered with BMC Software to develop a new “advanced” cloud computing delivery platform for large-scale cloud infrastructures. What exactly does this mean and what impact might it have on cloud computing in general? Here’s the update:

It’s called the VDI Coalition and its tagline is: “Accelerating the Effective Deployment of Virtual Desktops.” Xiotech Corp. is spearheading the group, whose ranks also include Silver Peak Systems, GlassHouse Technologies, Virsto Software and Pano Logic. The VDI Coalition’s purpose is to provide customers with more effective means of deploying virtual desktops. How feasible is that? Let’s take a look.

Cisco and VMware are joining forces to provide a virtual desktop solution with “channel initiatives” to help accelerate Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) deployments. The plan is based on Cisco’s Unified Computing System and VMware View 4.5. Will the incentives attract more channel partners to the VDI discussion? Read on for the details…

In an ideal world, free-software developers would happily get along and cooperate towards the same ends. But the world’s far from perfect, as rising tensions between the Ubuntu and Fedora camps have made clear recently in the wake of the founding a new website intended, ironically, to promote “respect” within the open-source ecosystems.

As of this week, the first release candidate of OpenOffice 3.3.0 is out.  Ordinarily, this wouldn’t be very big news.  But given the drama that’s surrounded the OpenOffice project lately, and questions from some quarters over Oracle’s commitment to it, the release merits some remarks.

This Sunday–the tenth day of the tenth month of the tenth year of the millennium–Ubuntu 10.10, better known to some as “Maverick Meerkat,” will officially debut.  We can’t promise the day will be as momentous as the end of the First World War.  But it will bring a number of major changes and new features to the world’s most popular Linux distribution.  Read on for highlights.

Is Red Hat looking for a change of scenery? Perhaps. Multiple published reports suggest Red Hat may relocate its headquarters from Raleigh, N.C, to Boston, Mass. No, wait. Red Hat is moving to Atlanta, Ga. Hold on a second… Red Hat is going to Austin, Texas. What’s the truth? Here’s a best guess, and the potential implications for Red Hat’s partners and customers.

No planes, no trains… but plenty of automobiles this week. The VAR Guy’s schedule was filled with distractions. But he managed to keep his eyes on the IT channel. And there was plenty of chatter worth blogging about… if only the days weren’t so short. Here are six channel partner blog entries The VAR Guy and his team of pundits didn’t have a chance to write for the week ending Sept. 24, 2010.

Qualcomm, the wireless chip specialist, appears to be a poster child for Red Hat’s enterprise software strategy. Indeed, Qualcomm plans to leverage both Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization (RHEV) to increase production workloads. Qualcomm’s move comes as most large enterprises try to choose between VMware, Microsoft Hyper-V and Citrix virtualization. Here are some details.

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.

Ubuntu developers have been busy in recent days discussing improvements to the package sponsorship process.  Though this might seem at first glance like an esoteric technical topic that matters only to geeks, it fits into the larger picture of Ubuntu in important ways.  Here’s why you should care.