Great news!! The VAR Guy has named Likewise to his Open Source 50 report ranking us in the top 25.

The Open Source 50 is the VAR Guy’s annual look at open source in the IT channel. The annual survey tracks open source companies based on a range of variables, including the size, influence and growth of their partner programs. Also, The VAR Guy measures the percent of company revenues derived from channel partners.

Being recognized by the VAR Guy is a big deal for Likewise. We take the channel very seriously because of the value they deliver to end users. Many resellers, for instance, are currently selling into accounts that run Active Directory (this is by far the dominant directory out there — with stats as high as 90% penetration). They would like to be able to sell other platforms (Mac/Linux) because of the flexibility and cost savings but don’t have a way for customers to control and administer them. We solve that issue. Using the Likewise platform enables customers to use the operating system they want and need — and many can use our free platform, Likewise Open.

For system integrators, the Likewise platform sits at the heart of a company’s security and authentication center. Integrators love our solution not just as a way to generate revenue from services but also as a straight way to solve a pain point for their customer, again moving from vendor to trusted solution provider and separating themselves from their competitors.

The other great part of Likewise being included in this report — it recognizes the value of our open source roots. None of our commercial AD Bridge competitors have this incredible development and business model. Likewise Open provides thousands of users a fast, easy and free way to authenticate — and gives enterprise IT managers an easy path to the more robust and feature-rich Likewise Enterprise.

What great news for Likewise and our customers.

Back in January, our CEO and chief blogger, Barry Crist, did a couple posts, which are worth taking a look at:

The Channel

Integrator: Wise Up with Likewise

Feel free to post your comment here or write to us at partners@likewise.com if you would like more information about working with Likewise.