Six Channel Partner Blogs The VAR Guy Didn’t Write: March 12

The VAR Guy has been drinking with two fists this week — Coca Cola in one hand, latte in the other. The steady diet of caffeine helped our resident blogger to drive plenty of web traffic. But The VAR Guy still couldn’t meet all of his deadlines. Here are six channel partner-related blog entries that The VAR Guy failed to write for the week ending March 12, 2010:

7. Exit, Stage Left: Sun’s top open source officer has left following the Oracle merger. The VAR Guy hopes Simon Phipps’ departure isn’t a sign of things to come for MySQL, OpenOffice and other technologies that Oracle inherited from Sun.

6. Speed Record?: Cisco says its new CRS-3 router would allow every movie ever made to  be downloaded in less than 4 seconds. Of course, the router targets massive service providers rather than traditional VARs. But the CRS-3 could still potentially benefit solutions providers. From the back-end (CRS-3) to the front-end (Flip Video), Cisco is taking steps to ensure the Internet can support more and more video. The memo for VARs: Explore managed video as a service (MVaaS).

5. How’s My Driving?: The RackSpace Cloud team is surveying customers to measure satisfaction levels. Smart move. The VAR Guy wonders: How many MSPs and VARs are taking similar steps to gather honest customer feedback — especially as more and more MSPs offer pro-active services that customers may never see.

4. CompTIA Gets Relevant: The VAR Guy keeps meaning to blog about CompTIA’s blog and social media offerings for members. Frankly, some of CompTIA’s early social media efforts fell flat. Anybody else remember CompTIA’s Focus on MSP site (2007-2008)? Fast forward to the present, and CompTIA’s blogs are providing relevant info to VARs and MSPs. More analysis next week.

3. Two Places At Once: The Cisco Partner Summit 2010 and HP Americas Partner Conference are both set for the week of April 26. Which partner conference will The VAR Guy attend? The answer: Both. Our resident blogger intends to offer wall-to-wall coverage from both conferences. Skeptical? Stay tuned.

2. BPOS Challenges?: Microsoft sure sounds upbeat about BPOS (Business Productivity Online Suite), the company’s cloud platform for Exchange Online, SharePoint Online and other Microsoft SaaS applications.

But here’s a key item worth noting: Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 launched as an on-premises solution in 2009. Yet, BPOS is still stuck on the Exchange 2007 release at a time when Microsoft partners like Intermedia already offer hosted Exchange 2010. Why’s that? Shouldn’t Microsoft keep up with its hosted partners? Plus, shouldn’t Microsoft keep its SaaS and on-premises releases in sync? The VAR Guy is checking…

1. Check the Headline: The VAR Guy still refuses to play by the rules. This is a top 6 list. And it’s time for The VAR Guy to jump over to some other projects. Back soon with more blog entries. Thanks for reading.