The VAR Guy

Software as a service (SaaS) stocks extended their 2009 winning streak during the first week of 2010. In fact, The VAR Guy’s SaaS 20 Stock Index rose 2.6% for the week ending Jan. 8, 2010, compared to closing prices on Dec. 31, 2009. Winners beat losers by a margin of 3 to 1. Here’s a quick look at the biggest one-week movers.

Visit Kaspersky Lab’s web site and you’ll notice the top header reads “Home Computer Security.” The VAR Guy expects that to change under Nancy Reynolds, Kaspersky’s new senior VP of corporate sales. Reynolds, a well-known channel veteran, left Dell and joined Kaspersky (the fast-growing anti-virus specialist) earlier this week. In this FastChat video, Reynolds offers some thoughts on where she plans to take Kaspersky’s channel program…

SugarCRM CEO Larry Augustin loves stretch goals. A case in point: Augustin hopes to double SugarCRM’s revenues in 2010. To get there Augustin will need help from traditional channel partners and emerging Software as a Service (SaaS) partners. Here’s the open source CRM company’s strategy.

Hmmm… The VAR Guy’s Web site seems to be getting pretty crowded lately. A bunch of new voices are now blogging for the site — though The VAR Guy claims to remain in control. No need for panic, folks. It’s all part of a plan to continue growing The VAR Guy’s web site in 2010 and beyond.

Cisco Systems concedes that many regional economies remain difficult, but the company believes the worst of the recession is over. So how can VARs and managed service providers begin to focus on growth again? During the Cisco Partner Velocity conference in Paris, Senior VP of Worldwide Channels Edison Peres offers these four tips…

At the VoiceCon 2009 conference in San Francisco, there was growing buzz about softphones potentially replacing standard hard land-line phones. Here’s a quick overview on the opportunities and challenges awaiting VARs and MSPs in the next-generation unified communications market.

The VAR Guy concedes: He needs some latte — and an upgrade to improve site performance. Across the board, Nine Lives Media Inc.’s web traffic is up 140 percent in October 2009 vs. October 2008. The VAR Guy thanks you for your growing readership. And he’s taking two steps to improve site responsiveness: A hardware upgrade from his service provider plus a few software architecture tweaks. Our resident blogger will post a follow-up comment to this blog entry as soon as the adjustments are completed. In the meantime The VAR Guy appreciates your readership. He’s listening to your feedback and responding with site upgrades.

Forgive The VAR Guy if he mixes business with pleasure for a few minutes. Our resident blogger hears Tech Data’s TechSelect Conference (Nov. 12-15) will be held at Walt Disney World’s Contemporary Resort in Orlando. A certain blogger and future monorail driver may need to make the trip…

The VAR Guy loves cat fights as much as the next guy. Jennifer Aniston vs. Angelina Jolie? Classic but a bit dated. Canonical vs. Microsoft? Not quite as sexy, but certainly timely and just as much fun. The latest spat involves Canonical dismissing Microsoft’s claims in the netbook market. But the feud ignores the bigger netbook problem.

The VAR Guy has a confession: He’s fried. Burned out. Exhausted. Blogging until all hours of the night can do that to you. But will our resident blogger ever retire? Can he trade in his keyboard for a recliner? Doubtful. Here’s why.

Let’s face it: The only real reason for having partners is to drive greater amounts of revenue less expensively that doing it yourself. So why are so many channel partner programs generating mediocre results? You can certainly blame your partners’ inability to execute. But here are the three key issues you really need to address.

Looking at most partner programs, you often see a matrix listing all of the “benefits” of partnering — neatly segmented into Gold, Silver & Bronze levels. While this looks nice on the website, the basic elements that ensure a valuable, productive, and mutually beneficial partnership are often overlooked. Here’s how channel chiefs and technology companies can correct that problem.

During the recession — as direct sales teams work overtime to close deals — I am sure many high-tech companies have asked themselves: “Why have channel partners?” While it is a valid question that elicits lots of healthy debate, there is really only one right answer – it’s the revenue. This may be obvious to some, but when you look closely at many partner programs — especially open source partner programs — it is sometimes difficult to determine how partner initiatives drive revenue for the company.

Now that we’ve launched The Open Source 50, I’ll help readers to explore, question, and understand how open source is changing the world of partner programs and channels as we know it today — and most importantly how we all adapt and continue to grow. What made a good partner program before may not make sense in the open source world and the drivers or reasons why companies partner may now be very different. Here’s why.

You just landed a meeting with a potential client and you have been working relentlessly to get this set up.  Before you go into that meeting and try to sell the client your services, there are five key messages you need to master.  Here they are.

The VAR Guy’s crystal ball is a little fuzzy today. Perhaps a trip to Starbucks will open his eyes a little wider. In the meantime, if you’re looking for some predictions about the Software as a Service (SaaS) and Managed Services markets check out these thoughts from Think Strategies’ Jeff Kaplan and Kaseya’s Dan Shapero, respectively.

And how was your weekend? As the image suggests, The VAR Guy has been sick since Friday. But the miracle of endless sleep combined with a few gallons of Gatorade got our resident blogger back on his feet today. Timeless (and sometimes tasteless) blogging resumes today. Happy Holidays.

The VAR Guy was intrigued today when he read Mark Evans’ blog entry rehashing of Nortel Networks’ 1998 acquisition of Bay Networks. Evans wonders if Nortel would have been smarter to acquire someone else. The VAR Guy has a completely different view on the deal. Here’s the scoop.

When Novell released quarterly financial results today (Dec. 4), The VAR Guy was curious to see how SUSE Linux sales were shaping up. Here are some answers, along with three other key facts culled from the results.

Digital signage remains a hot opportunity for VARs and integrators. But most digital signage systems are passive networks that push content out to plasma and LCD screens. So, what’s next for digital signage? The VAR Guy found the answer in Australia.

Sometimes the best way to deal with stress is to laugh at the situation — before regrouping to face new challenges head-on. The VAR Guy rather enjoyed this video spin on the US economy. A pal who works for a major US broadband provider sent him the link:

Vendors fall all over themselves to try and land in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant research results. CIOs actually make buying decisions based on the Magic Quadrant reports (no joke). But has anybody else noticed Radicati Group evangelizes a Market Quadrant research strategy? Hmmm. Perhaps it’s time for The VAR Guy to launch the Magic Research Quadrant — to rank those unbiased research houses…

The VAR Guy has reached his breaking point. Each week he receives dozens of online meeting invites from vendors. The online presentations often contain lame product pitches, complex diagrams or terrible PowerPoints. Even worse, the online conference software often doesn’t work with The VAR Guy’s Apple MacBook Pro. It’s time to put an end to this nonsense, and reinvent these briefings.