The VAR Guy

Siemens Enterprise Networks (SEN) has released the latest version of its OpenScape unified communications platform, with added features that could make it an even more attractive offering for solution providers.

Polycom has partnered with VoIP software app vendor BroadSoft to build a hosted solution that enables solution providers to offer unified communication (UC) services in the cloud. It’s the latest in a string of Polycom partner moves. Here are the details.

Avaya’s channel VP sees 2010 as a turning point for the channel. How so? Carol Neslund, VP of Avaya’s North American Channel, offers some quick thoughts here.

ADTRAN is well-known in the networking market. Now, the company is making the move into unified communications. I spoke to Ted Cole, senior VP channel sales at ADTRAN, to get a feel for the company’s channel program and unified communications move. Cole’s key takeaway: He thinks partners can now build end-to-end solutions leveraging ADTRAN’s product portfolio. Here’s a recap of the conversation.

Avaya is one step closer to officially buying Nortel Enterprise Solutions. The reason: The Canadian Minister of Industry has approved Avaya’s buyout of Nortel Enterprise Solutions. Next up, Avaya expects the deal to close by the end of December. But will unified communications VARs welcome the wedding?

Digium is expanding its channel partner program — potentially engaging more resellers that want to embrace Asterisk, the open source IP PBX. Digium has been particularly active with channel partners in recent months. Here’s the scoop.

Hewlett-Packard’s ProCurve division has expanded its Open Network Ecosystem (ONE) by more than five new vendors, further positioning itself as a one-stop shop for its channel partners. ProCurve ONE, combined with HP’s pending buyout of 3Com, are the latest steps in HP’s efforts to compete more effectively against Cisco Systems. Here are the details.

You may not know Denzil Samuels, but that’s about to change. Samuels (pictured) quietly joined Siemens  Enterprise Communications in May 2009. His goal: To completely revamp the unified communications company from direct sales to channel sales. It’s too soon to draw any long-term conclusions but multiple anecdotes suggest Samuels (and Siemens) are making channel progress. Here’s the scoop.

As he sat at the Cisco Partner Velocity conference in Paris, The VAR Guy pondered news of Hewlett-Packard buying 3Com for $2.7 billion. Does the HP-3Com combo make any sense? And will Cisco Systems return fire by working more closely with Lenovo? Here are some answers.

At San Francisco’s VoiceCon 2009, Siemens Enterprise Communications Group previewed Twitter integration with their OpenScape Unified Communications application while running in an Amazon EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud) environment. Siemens also says they plan to release the SDKs to allow customers to create their own social networking and communications “mash-ups” and test them in a scalable instance of OpenScape.

The VAR Guy has spent plenty of time covering Asterisk — the open source IP PBX — in recent weeks. But a few solutions providers are telling our resident blogger to give equal time to 3CX, which develops a software PBX for Windows. What’s the story?  You’re about to find out.

Has Google embraced Digium’s Asterisk, the open source IP PBX? Google Open Source Programs Manager Chris DiBona (pictured) provides some answers during the AstriCon conference in Glendale, Ariz. The VAR Guy captured DiBona’s thoughts in this FastChat video…

At the Astricon conference in Arizona, Digium announced the AsteriskExchange application store, an overhauled Asterisk.org community site and AsteriskForge for software developers. The three moves potentially solidify Asterisk and Digium as a disruptive force in the IP PBX market and the channel. Digium Founder and CTO Mark Spencer explained the strategy to The VAR Guy.

Asterisk, the open source IP PBX, is turning 10 years old. And Digium, the fast-growing provider of commercial Asterisk solutions, is hosting the Astricon conference this week. All sounds well. But The VAR Guy will raise seven key questions when he speaks with Digium officials later today. Here they are.

When the Astricon conference kicks off Oct. 13 in Glendale, Ariz., The VAR Guy will be checking to see if Asterisk — the open source IP PBX — is ready for mainstream VARs and solutions providers. Actually, The VAR Guy thinks he already knows the answer to that question. Here’s why.

How’s this for ironic: As Microsoft pushes ahead with its Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS), some of Microsoft’s own SaaS partners say their hosted offerings — Exchange, SharePoint, etc. — are several steps ahead of Microsoft’s internal BPOS efforts. A case in point: Consider the situation at Intermedia, a major hosted application provider that’s working with nearly 5,000 channel partners.

Unison Communications created considerable buzz last year when the company announced a free, advertising-driven unified communications system. Now, Unison is preparing some new unified communications surprises that will debut in September 2009. Plus a hosted beta for channel partners is under way. Here’s the scoop, from The VAR Guy.

At the Cisco Partner Summit in Boston, Cisco continues to rally partners against Hewlett-Packard. The three latest words of war allegedly come from Cisco’s Chuck Robbins (pictured), senior VP, U.S. Commercial Market. Here’s the scoop.

Unison Communications — which develops unified communications software on Centos, Ubuntu and Red Hat Linux — is preparing to launch a partner program within the next few weeks, The VAR Guy learned during VoiceCon. Here are the early details.

Time for The VAR Guy to eat a little crow. A few days ago our resident blogger reported that open source IP PBXes — and Asterisk — would have a low profile at the VoiceCon Orlando conference this week in Orlando. But Digium and Fonality sent a wake-up call to The VAR Guy. Here’s a scoop.

Zeacom isn’t the best-known brand in Unified Communications, but the privately held company seems to be sneaking up on rivals. Skeptical? Consider this: Zeacom insiders say the company is profitable, has no debt and 10 percent of the company’s annual revenue is in the bank. Hmmm. The VAR Guy is intrigued.

At first glance, it was a casual comment: Cisco Global Channel Chief Keith Goodwin posted a Tweet stating he was heading to Starbucks shortly before or after a meeting about the company’s core acceleration channel incentives. But was there a hidden meaning to the message? Hmmm…

Unison Technologies, with an assist from Canonical and Ubuntu Linux, says it is “launching a major threat to Microsoft Exchange.” Hmmm. The VAR Guy has heard similar grandstanding before from a range of companies. But Unison has caught our resident blogger’s attention a few times. Here’s why.