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Feb. 17, 2010

According to a few reports in various Linux forums, Lenovo, Red Hat and even Tech Data are attempting a partnership agreement to offer IT integrators and VARs some price discounts on a few Lenovo ThinkServers' models with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) or Red Hat Enterprise Linux Advanced.

The details, as well as the potential implications for Linux solutions providers can be seen below:

Qualified Red Hat resellers can buy a ThinkServer from Tech Data with a $75 instant rebate, or they can buy a ThinkServer with Red Hat Enterprise Linux for a $150 instant rebate, or they can buy a ThinkServer with Red Hat Enterprise Linux Advanced for a $250 instant rebate.

Resellers do not have to be Lenovo resellers.

Additional details can be found on Lenovo’s channel blog.

There's no question that the open source IT channel continues to grow and grow rapidly. But, as it has been noted in the past by various members of the Linux and open source community, there’s still more room for improvement. Overall, open source has been an enterprise and consumer success story involving Linux server virtualization in data centers and free options catching on with consumers, such as Ubuntu Linux, Thunderbird, etc.

However, open source in small businesses is still confusing to some. To be fair, there are some small businesses that run Linux in their offices, performing a good part of their daily chores. Many do so without even realizing it, because of the growing proliferation of Linux and open source applications.

But there's no denying that Microsoft still remains the major and overwhelmingly dominant brand in small businesses, and the one that is still the most visible to most people.

This is all fine and dandy, but while all of this is happening before us, IT distributors such as Tech Data and its long time rival Synnex have been trying to promote more Linux and open source solutions to their respective partner bases.

In fact, Synnex actually partnered with Red Hat in January of last year to launch the Open Source Channel Alliance. Tech Data countered in October with Open Tech, a similar open source channel effort.

Sources say the Tech Data and Synnex efforts are off to a slow but promising start. Both IT distributors have many reseller partners, but the distributors are trying to shift the open source conversation beyond Linux to include open source applications like databases, e-mail, CRM, ERP and CMSs (content management systems).

Some resellers in the Tech Data and Synnex camps don’t even have that application-level expertise, at least not yet. It will take some time to train and place these resellers up to speed in certain of these newer markets. This is called time and money...

And while all of this is happening before our very eyes, Lenovo has been building a server business for the past two and-a-half years now.

Better known for its ThinkCentre desktops and ThinkPad notebooks, Lenovo launched the ThinkServer line in November 2007 with Windows and Novell SUSE Linux support.

As could be expected, Lenovo also introduced Red Hat Enterprise Linux support as well. The move potentially positions Red Hat and Lenovo to push Linux deeper into the small and midsize business markets.

Now, Tech Data is lending the small business and open source community a helping hand with the effort...

Some observers in the Linux community are intrigued by this, such as the Var Guy. Lenovo needs a strong server business to compete effectively against the likes of IBM, HP and Dell. Additionally, Red Hat needs stronger partnerships to infiltrate smaller business and mid-market opportunities as well.

It will be interesting to see if this new initiative helps the open source and small business community, and if it does, what will be the short and mid-term outcomes, not just to VARs but to application developers as well.

As always, we will keep you posted.

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Source: The VAR Guy.

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