The VAR Guy

I’m at the first-ever Juniper Networks Global Partner Conference here at the Mandalay Bay hotel and casino in Las Vegas, where the networking company is laying out its channel strategies for the next year. The biggest announcement: the rebranding of the company’s partner play to the Juniper Partner Advantage program, a so-called “pivoting” of its channel strategy aimed at helping VARs stay relevant in a changing market.

One of the most intriguing things about this week’s Juniper Networks inaugural Global Partner Conference in Las Vegas is that the focus was largely taken off the technology side of things (not to say that it was absent), with much of the discussion given over to the new marketing strategies that the changing IT marketplace requires. And to that end, Juniper took the opportunity of having the undivided attention of more than a thousand partners to announce the Marketing Concierge platform and InnoVAR training tools.

As promised, Intel has reached out with a little bit more information on its new line of Intel Xeon E5 Sandy Bridge server boards for channel partners. The general gist: Intel wants to help channel partners build their businesses on services and hardware from its Enterprise Platform and Services Division (EPSD), and it’s accelerating its software platform while providing higher-performance motherboards to help get them there.

Intel, my hosts here at the SC ’11 conference in Seattle, used the first day of the event to make a pair of announcements that shows the chip giant is always looking to the future. First, Intel released the first details of Knights Corner, a 50-plus core chip that can deliver a consistent 1 teraflop of double-precision floating-point precision. And second, Intel released the details of a new line of Sandy Bridge-compatible motherboards designed for the reseller channel.

Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst says the Linux supplier is on pace to become the first $1 billion open source company. Whitehurst’s statement is hardly surprising considering Red Hat’s most recent quarterly results. But the $1 billion revenue mark is both good news and bad news for the open source movement. Here’s why.

The third and final day of Intel Developer Forum 2011 saw the chip giant shift its focus from its Ultrabook mobility strategy to its more forward-looking energy-saving technologies including a solar-powered Pentium-class processor concept, baked-in-chip capabilities to boost JavaScript performance, a super-high capacity Hybrid Memory Cube, and the rise of multi-core computing. Here’s the scoop on Intel CTO Justin Rattner’s keynote.

The second day of the Intel Developer Forum 2011 was given over entirely to a deep dive on the Ultrabook strategy, with Intel VP and GM of the PC Client Group Mooly Eden taking the stage to give attendees a closer look at concepts teased the day before. Microsoft even stopped by with a brief update on how existing applications can play nicely in the new Windows 8 playground.

No doubt, holding Microsoft Windows BUILD at the same time as Intel Developer Forum 2011 caused a dilemma for channel pros who’ve partnered up with both companies. But there was a surprise in my IDF goodie bag that’s potentially good news for the Microsoft partners in attendance: the promise of free Windows Server 8 preview and development kits at the Microsoft booth. But you’ll have to be fast — there are only 100 download codes to go around.

Linda Zecher, Microsoft’s corporate vice president of Worldwide Public Sector, has departed the Redmond giant to become the new CEO at education and learning company Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. While The VAR Guy gets the general sense that Zecher’s departure from Microsoft was on better terms than enterprise chief Simon Witts‘, it still raises the question, What the heck is going on at Microsoft?

There is some truth to generalizations made by the solution provider community that product sales margins are on a declining trend and that it’s too hard to sell product. But, I argue if you identify and drive out the hidden costs in the product sales process, you’ll notice an upward trend of your profitability. In addition, you will recognize an increased opportunity to sell more services and bolt on your managed service offerings.

Cha-ching. Big retailers apparently rang up big sales on Black Friday (Nov. 26), which is the biggest holiday shopping day in the US. But here’s an interesting twist: With a major assist from American Express, thousands of entrepreneurs are busy promoting Small Business Saturday (Nov. 27). Here are six ways VARs and managed services providers can potentially profit from the small business shopping push.

Somehow in the last few years the term “Reseller” has become an insult.  It’s not enough anymore to just sell a product, now to be a true Value Added Reseller (VAR) partners must provide services.  None of this is news but many partners are promoting themselves as a VAR when they may still be just a, dare I say it, Reseller.

“I’m a trusted advisor.” The VAR Guy hears that sentence over and over again from VARs, resellers and managed service providers. Frankly, the term has become meaningless in the past year. Here’s why.