At its SuperDrive 2012 channel partner event this week in Las Vegas, the network infrastructure vendor acknowledged the impact its partners have had on its success in the last few years, due in part to the company’s shift in focus to serve its partners.

“When Ram (Appalaraju, VP of Marketing) and I came to Enterasys, we realized there were two major areas of the company that needed focus: marketing and the channel,” said Charlie VanPelt, director of North American Channels at Enterasys. “From the channel perspective we saw had a culture where our AEs (account executives) were good at selling deals, our customers were loyal, and we would put deals through channel, but we had not spent time cultivating the channel. We needed to change that culture and be channel-centric so all the pull-through goes through the channel. We have to leverage the channel to grow the channel.”

For the past two years or so, Enterasys has done just that, creating a channel-focused organization in which 90 percent of sales go through its partners. The result: Enterasys has enjoyed 10 quarters of consecutive year-over-year growth. In addition, 100 new partners have signed on in the past year, and revenue through its partners has increased 26 percent through the first half of 2012 vs. the first half 2011, noted Enterasys President and CEO Chris Crowell during his keynote May 15.

Now the company is shifting its focus slightly to marketing, hoping to build and sustain a message of relevancy for its partners in particular verticals.

“If you look at any press release from any vendor and strip out the name of the company and the product, every one is saying the exact same thing,” Appalaraju said. “We know we need to help our partners differentiate themselves and tell our story in a way that is relevant to the customer.”

As such, Enterasys plans to roll out a series of marketing tools for partners focused in key verticals including healthcare, K-12, higher education, federal government, hospitality and manufacturing logistics. The idea is to match the customer need within each vertical to Enterasys’ three main focus areas: access edge, mobility/bring your own device and virtualization/virtual desktop infrastructure.

“Our innovation matters most in verticals where business is high priority and IT is not,” Appalaraju said. “They want all the things big guys want, but they don’t have the support structure to do it. That’s where our technology message resonates the best.”

Indeed, those vertical markets are prime candidates for Enterasys’ OneFabric architecture, which Enterasys debuted in October 2011 to address the management of devices from the data center to the edge, on both wired and wireless networks. Enterasys believes the OneFabric approach is what makes its story so compelling to and for its partner base.

So far, it look as though partners agree.

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Struthers shifted into the McAfee channel chief slot amid sweeping changes in the IT security industry. In recent months, Kaspersky Lab, Sophos and Symantec each have made channel leadership hires or changes. Some of the changes simply involved executives pursuing new opportunities. But The VAR Guy suspects some of the changes also involved the security industry’s push toward cloud computing and recurring revenue models.

New Zip Code

As part of Struthers’ shift into McAfee’s channel chief post, he recently relocated from Australia to Silicon Valley. Instead of overhauling McAfee’s channel partner program, Struthers said he has been executing “on a great foundation” that was laid in place over the past two years.

“We’re investing in, growing with, and optimizing for our partners,” he said. The SMB security market is fragmented with no clear leader, he added, stating: “The market is looking for leadership and we’ll provide it.”

That statement sounds somewhat similar to up-and-coming rival Kaspersky Lab, where Channel Chief Nancy Reynolds last week said Kaspersky will work closely with partners to gain an “unfair share” of the SMB security market.

McAfee and End-to-End Security

In contrast, McAfee believes it’s the only vendor with end-to-end security solutions, starting with deeper and deeper hardware integration, stretching from endpoints  to the data center and out to the cloud. “We’ve been doing the cloud for 10 years, since before the cloud became cool.”

Among McAfee’s SMB channel milestones, Struthers mentioned:

• McAfee SMB deal registration: Launched last year, deal registration grew 47 percent in Q1.
• More than 2,000 partners worldwide have registered to become McAfee SMB Specialized in less than a 12-month period.
• McAfee has had 30,000 new visitors (again in less than year) to the Partner Acceleration Resource Center, a portal for McAfee SMB Specialized partners. Of those 30,000 visitors two-thirds have made return visits to the portal.
• McAfee leaders have been attending Intel Solution Summits worldwide, explaining to attendees how McAfee is going down the stack into the hardware layer.
• Struthers is heading to partner gatherings in Hawaii and Europe over the next two weeks, continuing a steady drumbeat of information to those partners.

Over time, Struthers predicted, the security market will evolve much in the way that the networking market evolved in the 1980s and 1990s. There will be consolidation, integration and automation, he asserted. “The market wants end-to-end simplicity. Some niche players may promote a best of breed product here or other, but you need security integration across the endpoints, the network and the cloud.”

Struthers hit on some other SMB high-points. The VAR Guy intends to return with more analysis on this topic later this week.

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But in the world of small business we see examples every day of companies whose data is at risk with unreliable backup solutions. One standout example of this is businesses that still use USBs to protect their most critical information.

Do you know what the acronym “USB” stands for?  If you said “Universal Serial Bus,” you’d be right … if it was 1996. That’s when USB drives first hit the market, and gave businesses a false sense of data security. Businesses today should know to refer to the USB by its more modern, more accurate name that describes its unreliability as their primary data protection — “Un-Safe Backup.”

Why the unflattering term? Let’s start with the obvious — they’re small and easy to lose. And be honest, we’ve all lost one, whether between the couch cushions, at the bottom of a purse, or at the dry cleaners. In fact, according to a recent survey, we left more than 17,000 USB drives at the dry cleaners in 2010, in addition to our lucky ties. That’s a 400 percent increase in USB drives that we left the local dry cleaners in 2009.

All joking aside, the dangers of USBs are real. Since businesses today are more privy to malware attacks via e-mail and suspicious websites, cybercriminals are now infiltrating more USB drives. Today, roughly 25 percent of malware is intended to crack USB devices.

More than half of the businesses surveyed in a 2011 Ponemon Institute study reported losing sensitive or confidential information that they carried on USB devices within the last two years. More than 70 percent of them reported losing those devices multiple times. Consider that each drive can hold about 12,000 records and breached records cost businesses an average of $194 each, according to the same study. That means one lost USB can set a business back by more than $2.3 million, and this doesn’t count the downtime resulting from this data loss.

What’s more, small businesses suffer the most from the use of Un-Safe Backups, given that so few of them have dedicated IT personnel or have set proper policies that combat USB threats. A December 2010 study by Lenovo of more than 700 small businesses found that 31 percent of SMBs are using USBs to back up their work data. Only 13 percent of respondents were aware of their company using a cloud-based backup solution. We’re talking small banks, independent healthcare facilities, junior law firms — small businesses that carry much of our most sensitive and personal information.

The good news is, where there’s a threat, there’s an opportunity for solution providers and resellers to help. And right now VARs have the opportunity to help small businesses protect themselves against malware and other threats to their networks with a more complete data backup, disaster recovery and business continuity solution. Let’s not forget why SMBs started using USBs in the first place — there weren’t any affordable alternatives 16 years ago. All of the data backup solutions were designed for enterprises and priced accordingly.

But now SMBs have options — access to affordable data backup, disaster recovery and business continuity solutions that will keep their files safe and their businesses up and running. This is much easier than a sales pitch. It’s an opportunity to educate – to make your SMB clients aware that affordable and more reliable alternatives to Un-Safe Backups do exist. After that, smart businesses will be asking for it before you offer it.

Chris Sterbenc is VP of sales at Axcient, which works closely with MSPs and VARs. Monthly guest blogs such as this one are part of The VAR Guy’s annual platinum sponsorship. Read all of Axient’s guest blogs here.

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To be sure, there’s been no official indication that Skype, which was acquired by Microsoft a little over a year ago, will cease to support Linux. On the contrary: A Skype representative recently promised that development of the service’s Linux client remains active.

Yet reassurances by the Skype team aside, the fact remains that the Windows version of the software has received infinitely more love than its Linux — and, to a slightly lesser extent, Mac OS X — counterparts. This trend has held true in general since Skype was introduced, but it has become particularly pronounced in the time since Microsoft’s acquisition of Skype, during which there have been numerous updates to the Windows client and virtually none for the Linux version.

Skype and Linux in the Long Term

One can’t blame the Skype team too much for devoting relatively little attention to Linux, which represents only a tiny fraction of the desktop computers out there. (Linux’s presence on mobile devices in the form of Android, of course, is considerably harder to ignore, but that’s not quite the same thing.)

All the same, the relative neglect of the Skype Linux client is disappointingly similar to a pattern which has marked the slow death of Linux support for other popular software applications. Adobe’s  announcement earlier this year of its intention to abandon Flash plugin for Linux — a decision that followed several years during which Flash on Linux remained officially supported but in practice development was all but non-existent — is the most obvious example. Netflix, which promised a Linux client long, long ago but never delivered, represents a similar case.

But Does It Matter?

Until Skype actually delivers on active Linux development, I’m reluctant to put too much faith in its promises of continued support. On the other hand, however, I’m also not too worried about the issue, since Skype is no longer the killer app it once was — and I say that as someone who uses VoIP tools day in and day out.

Five years ago, when I first moved abroad, Skype was essential for maintaining professional and personal contacts at home. I couldn’t have done my job — much less maintained my sanity — without Skype videoconferencing and cheap calls to phones overseas.

But since that time, a lot has changed, and I’m not sure Skype has kept up. Other services have appeared offering the same features for less money — not to mention fewer obnoxious behind-the-scenes drains on my Internet bandwidth of the sort that Skype uses. Virtually all chat protocols now support videoconferencing. More importantly for me, I can call phones back in the United States for free via Google Voice, while Skype still charges for PC-to-phone connections.

All in all, even if Skype use continues to grow, it seems to me that the platform has begun facing a brick wall. It hasn’t seen any real innovation in several years; most of the recent updates to the product have simply been bug fixes, incremental improvements to existing features or efforts to take advantage of more network bandwidth. The software is not the game changer it once was, and it lacks the integrative potential of competing services such as Google’s.

In VAR terms, then, Skype appears to be losing momentum, which is reassuring for me as a Linux user. I’m not so sure I’ll be able to run Skype on my Linux PC in five years, but I’m also not sure I’ll care.

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The 7.0 release of Afaria brings a new user interface for simplified app and expense management, an app portal with SAP Store integration and mobile analytics dashboards for business intelligence (BI) reporting with analysis capabilities.

The platform is designed to help businesses take advantage of bring your own device (BYOD) programs without compromising on security or getting bogged down with mobile management headaches, according to the company.

Customers with licenses for earlier versions of Afaria can use the same license for Afaria 7.0 on AWS, and SAP is also offering a 14-day free trial for customers without an Afaria license.

The company also released four mobile applications aimed at on-the-go employees, including a travel expense report app that allows business travelers to create expense reports from a mobile device, and the Customer Briefing mobile app, which provides customer relationship management (CRM) data, as well as external business and news sources.

The Learning Assistant mobile app allows learners to explore content, manage course bookings and download and play e-learning content online in a range of formats from Apple’s iPad tablet.

Finally, the SAP EHS Safety Issue mobile app, designed for companies focused on improving safety, enables workers to log issues from their mobile device with a photo or video/audio recording, and send it directly to an incident or safety manager.

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Marketing Depot was launched in November 2011 and is a place where marketing campaigns can be tailored for greater visibility — a service that can come in handy in a world where every advertising medium can feel like New York’s Times Square on steroids.

New features include a variety of adaptable template choices including print ads, e-mail, posters, web banners, event registration pages, CDs and white papers, plus access to a dashboard with enhanced reporting and metrics capabilities to track campaign successes.

The Marketing Depot also offers expanded template delivery options, including instant and free downloads, which are available for certain campaign assets and materials, and a new “intelligent” cart that provides total campaign costs and available promo dollars in real-time.

HP also added a live chat feature on several HP Partner Portal landing pages, including the Marketing Depot, that instantly connects partners with program support team to get help with their questions on program attributes and ask questions.

HP said it has made over 1,000 marketing assets available since the launch of the program. The aim, it said, is to provide partners with a more creative and individual approach to marketing by helping resellers connect with their customers — and develop new sales leads — through updates, news and other information.

HP’s not the only one ramping up its marketing programs for partners, however: the cloud professionals over at Mozy just overhauled their program, too.

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The SMB space will play a major role in Lenovo’s push to the top, said Chris Frey, channel chief and vice president, North American Commercial Channel Sales, and VARs that play in that space are in a prime position.

“We recognize the SMB space is pretty much an untapped opportunity,” he said during his keynote speech during day two of the event.

To support its partners working the SMB space, Lenovo introduced the SMB Partner Advantage program, which offers incentives for resellers that focus on SMBs as well as 60 days interest-free inventory financing financed by Lenovo from its distribution partners.

Lenovo also took the wraps off a new cash bonus program aptly named the Lenovo Spiff Program, which rewards partner sales reps for every qualified TopSeller Lenovo system or service sold, up to $10,000 per quarter. That money is in addition to the commission the business receives, providing an incentive for the sales rep to offer up Lenovo hardware to its customers.

“Our investment in the channel will grow as a percentage of our revenue and incremental growth in investment will go to SMB accounts that aren’t already being served,” said Jay Parker, vice president, North America Consumer/SMB. “Our channel partners need to be incented to sell products on behalf of Lenovo.”

Lenovo is also hyperfocusing on two verticals it believes are ripe with opportunity: education (especially the K-12 space) and government, both federal and state/local.

“In the public sector by 2015 we see a projected revenue growth of $197 million in higher education and $543 million in K-12, $247 million in state/local government and $195 million in federal government,” said Tom Looney, vice president, Relationship, Lenovo Enterprise/Public Sector/Federal. “There is no way we are going to get to these targets without [the channel’s] buy-in and support.”

Lenovo had great success finding its target last year when it led the charge to own the desktop space — in the 12 months following its 2011 partner event, Lenovo’s partners helped it build its desktop business 50 percent. This year, as it pushes servers and workstations, the company hopes its partners embrace the new technologies with the same level of enthusiasm.

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The X1 Carbon Ultrabook, slated to be available in summer 2012, features a carbon rollcage for durability, yet weighs less than 3 pounds. It includes 3G connectivity, Lenovo RapidCharge technology for a near-full battery charge in 30 minutes, and the Intel vPro technology for remote management.

“When we set out to design this we wanted to make sure our business customers would be proud to carry this device,” said Dilip Bhatia, vice president and general manager, ThinkPad. “It will be the best in class in Ultrabooks.”

Lenovo also took the wraps off a slew of new ThinkPads aimed at the small-business, education, government and large corporation market. Each feature Intel third-generation Core processors and Lenovo Enhanced Experience 3.0 with the RapidBoot technology.

Among the X Series offerings announced:

• The ThinkPad X230 laptop, featuring 24 hours of battery life and 4G broadband connectivity, weighing 3 pounds;
• The ThinkPad X230t convertible tablet with pen, optional touch screen;
• The ThinkPad T430/430s/530 line, featuring up to 32.5 hours of battery life, USB 3.0, Lenovo RapidCharge and 4G mobile broadband;
• The ThinkPad W530 mobile workstation, featuring high processing power and high graphics performance  through NVIDIA Quadro mobile graphics processors with second generation Optimus power management technology; and
• The ThinkPad L430 and L530 laptops with high-definition screen.

The ThinkPads are slated to be available in June 2012 at prices ranging from about $839 to $1,529 depending on the model.

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The PCI Qualified Integrators and Resellers (QIR) program will be rolled out over the coming months, with training set to begin in late summer, the organization said.

PCI, an open industry standards body providing management of PA-DSS, PCI DSS and PIN Transaction Security (PTS) requirements, will provide integrators and resellers that sell, install and/or service payment applications on behalf of software vendors or others specialized training and certification on the secure installation and maintenance of validated payment applications.

Protecting cardholder data and the cardholder data environment is of increasing importance for small to medium-size businesses (SMBs) as customers look to the Web and mobile devices to make purchases. Maintaining that security is critical for these businesses, where a data breach can have catastrophic effects.

A recent report by Trustwave found that 76 percent of the breaches investigated in 2011 were a result of security vulnerabilities introduced by a third party responsible  for  system  support, development  and/or maintenance  of  business environments. Errors introduced by third parties during the implementation, configuration and support of PA-DSS systems was identified as a major risk to small businesses.

VARs can take this training opportunity to bolster their security credentials and meld that expertise with add-on services designed to keep mobile payment systems secure, while bringing their customers fully into the age of mobile payments—a (digital) cash cow for everyone.

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Launched earlier this month, Inktank is the creation of the Ceph development team, led by Sage Weil. Weil started writing the Ceph code in 2004 as part of his Ph.D. dissertation at USC Santa Cruz and continued to develop it after graduating in 2007.

Billed officially as “a self-managing, highly scalable, open source distributed storage system that uniquely delivers object storage, block storage, and POSIX-compatible file storage in one unified platform that runs on commodity hardware,” Ceph is among the open source ecosystem’s most innovative distributed file systems. Expect it to have major applicability in both the cloud and big-data as those niches evolve.

Ceph, which is licensed under the GNU Lesser General Public License and was integrated into the Linux kernel in 2010, has long been readily available to Unix server administrators. But with the launch of Inktank, its presence in the enterprise stands poised to grow firmer, since users will now be able to purchase integration and support services for the software.

Ceph and Ubuntu

Inktank’s service offers aren’t restricted to any operating system platform in particular. But Ubuntu seems to be an important focus of the company, which on May 9 put out a press release touting Ceph’s integration into Ubuntu 12.04, the latest long-term support (LTS) version of the popular Linux based operating system.

And that’s worth noting. Traditionally, Ubuntu has been most famous as a desktop operating system. Its server version is certainly formidable, and Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, has been investing heavily in the cloud and other enterprise oriented technologies. But wishful thinking aside, there’s little doubt that Ubuntu’s market share on production servers has a long way to go to match that of certain other Linux distributions backed by larger companies, like Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

The fact that Inktank has chosen to cast an eye on the Ubuntu world first thus stands out as a mark of Ubuntu’s momentum in the server world. As a survey of Ubuntu Server users earlier this year revealed, the operating system still has some major room to grow in key areas like the cloud, and Inktank’s nod to Ubuntu is a step in that direction.

Of course, the simple inclusion of Ceph packages in Ubuntu 12.04 is not going to revolutionize Ubuntu Server on its own. Nor does it ensure Inktank’s success as a commercial venture. But it won’t hurt either party, and it sets both on a path that could lead to further collaboration in the future.

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Updates for for the RSS 4000 Recording and Streaming Server and RealPresence Media Manager also improve compatibility with existing and future technologies, and the ability to live-stream or record videos for on-demand delivery to Web-enabled devices.

The RSS 4000 Recording and Streaming Server records, archives, and streams video conferences for playback, with a new Web-based user interface and integration with existing infrastructure including other external media servers that store and distribute digital media content.

RealPresence Media Manager includes full HTML5 support and a content transcoding engine that prepares content for playback on Android or iOS-based systems on tablets or smartphones, and digital signage integration allows IT to push content from the Media Manager to third-party digital signage solutions.

Media Manager is also compatible with Microsoft SQL Server 2012, which enables integrated search with multi-language support that returns relevant document and videos side-by-side.

With RealPresence Media Utility for IBM Sametime collaboration software, users can publish recorded Sametime sessions featuring audio and content into the media library for approval, transcoding and delivery across devices.

Polycom is pitching the platforms specifically at education, healthcare and manufacturing verticals, but as businesses increasingly adopt bring your own device (BYOD) policies and mobile solutions to streamline operations, VARs with a mobile focus should have no problem pitching the benefits to their customers.

The Polycom updates arrive amid questions about the telepresence market. Just last week, Cisco Systems became the latest technology company to describe softness in the telepresence market, blaming economic conditions rather than any major competitive issues.

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