5 Companies That Came To Win This Week

For the week ending April 3, CRN takes a look at the companies that brought their 'A' game to the channel.

The Week Ending April 3

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to dominate the news, some of this week’s 5 Companies That Came To Win roundup continues to focus on what IT companies are doing to help mitigate the pandemic’s impact. Topping this week’s list are HP Inc. and Microsoft for taking steps to help their channel partners weather the financial crisis.

Also making the list are Michael Dell’s foundation for a $100 million donation for coronavirus relief, Intel for the launch of new 10th-generation Core H-Series mobile processors, Palo Alto Networks for a strategic acquisition in the network security space, and Veeam channel chief Kevin Rooney for being the winner of CRN’s 2020 Channel Madness Tournament of Chiefs competition.

HP, Microsoft Launch Initiatives To Help Partners Manage Their Businesses Amid Economic Turmoil

Microsoft and HP Inc. win kudos this week for stepping up with efforts to help their channel partners work through the economic crisis sparked by the COVID-19 pandemic.

HP Inc. is providing new incentives and financial initiatives designed to help partners improve their financial stability. The measures will apply to the company’s PC and printer product lines – both of which have been in high demand with many people work from home during the crisis.

HP will offer short-term market- and country-specific incentives for channel partners. Some of the offerings are margin-related or cash-related while others involve cash discounts. The company has also moved to a flat-rate incentive program that eliminates the need for partners to achieve certain criteria so they can earn rebates in a more predictable manner.

Microsoft is also making a series of changes to its programs for solution providers to provide partners with greater flexibility. The software company, for example, is providing extensions around requirements for competencies and specializations: Partners with competency anniversary dates between Jan. 1 and June 30, 2020 can get extensions until their 2021 anniversary dates. for example. The company is also increasing the number of digital testing centers so certification exams can be done at home and waiving rescheduling fees.

Microsoft is also increasing incentive payouts for non-FastTrack partners who work with customers to achieve 15-percent usage in Teams deployments. FastTrack partners, meanwhile, will be eligible for a new incentive at the lowest qualified entitlement level. Microsoft has seen a surge in demand for its Teams collaboration service as more people work from home.

Michael Dell’s Foundation Donates $100M To Fight “Daunting” Coronavirus

The Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, started by Dell Technologies founder and CEO Michael Dell and his wife, is donating $100 million to efforts to develop treatments for the coronavirus and provide relief for communities and small businesses hit by the economic downturn sparked by the pandemic.

“The magnitude of the problem is daunting, and it is vitally important to us that help reaches as many people and families as possible,” said Dell in a LinkedIn post on Friday.

Approximately $80 million is targeted toward initiatives and projects related to coronavirus relief for communities, focusing on supporting healthcare and education systems, sustaining the work of nonprofits and social enterprises, and stabilizing livelihoods and small businesses.

Another $20 million is being dedicated to ensuring that the coronavirus becomes treatable and is eradicated as quickly as possible. The Dell foundation will give the funding to the COVID-19 Therapeutics Accelerator, which was launched by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Wellcome, and Mastercard, to identify potential treatments for COVID-19 and accelerate their development and distribution.

Intel Counters AMD Ryzen Laptop CPUs With Comet Lake H

Intel went on the competitive offensive this week when it debuted new 10th-generation Core H-Series processors that will deliver up to 5.3 GHz in boost frequency and eight cores for gaming and content creation notebooks.

Intel announced the new 14-nanometer processors, code-named Comet Lake H, which are seen as a competitive response to AMD’s Ryzen 4000 mobile processors.

Comet Lake H is the third processor series in the 10th-generation Core lineup. With the new processors, the chipmaker is promising the world's "fastest" mobile processors in more than 100 laptops in consumer, commercial and workstation segments this year, with more than half of them landing before July and more than 30 coming in ultra-thin form factors.

Palo Alto Networks To Buy SD-WAN Player CloudGenix For $420 Million

Palo Alto Networks made a big move on the acquisition front this week, striking a $420 million deal to buy CloudGenix, a developer of Autonomous SD-WAN technology used to improve application security and performance over wide-area networks.

The addition of CloudGenix’s technology to Palo Alto Networks’ portfolio will provide the company’s customers with a way to help customers add retail stores and remote branch operations onto the company’s Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) platform.

The acquisition improves Palo Alto Networks’ ability to serve customers as they transform their networks and security systems. Businesses and organizations are increasingly relying on applications that are distributed across data centers and cloud systems around the world.

Palo Alto Networks also wins applause for its efforts to help partners in its NextWave channel program weather the economic uncertainty caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Initiatives include the elimination of annual booking performance requirements for all levels, online proctored certification exams and vouchers, six-month certification extensions, virtual labs for customer demonstrations and a social syndication platform for partners, according to a letter to NextWave partners from Channel chief Karl Soderlund.

Veeam’s Kevin Rooney Wins 2020 Channel Madness Championship

Congratulations to Veeam channel chief Kevin Rooney this week for being the winner of this year’s CRN Channel Madness Tournament of Chiefs.

Rooney, vice president of Americas channel at the Baar, Switzerland-based data protection and management software developer, outlasted a field of 32 of the IT industry’s top channel executives to win the tournament.

This was the third year Rooney has competed in the Channel Madness tournament. The final round was close with Scott Lannum, HP Inc. vice president and general manager of Americas commercial channel sales, making a serious run at the championship. But Rooney came out on top with 51 percent of the vote.