thevarguy

7. MSPs Welcome: Online backup specialist Intronis is set to announce a new partner portal for MSPs on January 18. The VAR Guy wonders: Can anonymous, workaholic, caffeine addicted, well-dressed bloggers get in?

6. Back to BrainShare: The VAR Guy is trying his best to attend Novell BrainShare 2010. Our resident blogger first attended BrainShare back in 1994 or so. He wound up in an executive suite at a Utah Jazz basketball game seated next to Novell and WordPerfect managers. Great game… but the news of the day (Novell buying WordPerfect) was an air ball.

Fast forward to 2010, and our resident blogger is keeping an open mind about Novell’s new Intelligent Workload Management strategy.

5. Lost and Found: The VAR Guy couldn’t find his jacket, tie or hat this morning. But don’t worry. Everything turned up over on Oracle Channel Chief Judson Althoff’s blog.

4. Not That There’s Anything Wrong With That: The VAR Guy has received multiple notes about channel changes at Websense. Let’s cut to the chase: Websense is shifting to a global channel organization … yada, yada, yada … and channel veteran Dave Roberts will be leaving. Let The VAR Guy know where you go, Dave.

3. Offer Less, Charge More: Rackspace has raised the base price for its cloud services to US $150 per month, up from the previous level of US$100. The move (which only impacts new customers) comes less than a month after Rackspace experienced a limited outage. Interesting business model… disappear for a bit, come back, and raise your prices. The VAR Guy is envious.

2. Open Source 50: The VAR Guy’s second annual Open Source 50 survey is under way. Gotta be in it to win it.

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.