5 Companies That Came To Win This Week

For the week ending April 30, CRN takes a look at the companies that brought their ‘A’ game to the channel.

The Week Ending April 30

Topping this week’s Came to Win list is IBM for a strategic acquisition that will advance the company’s hybrid cloud management and AIOps capabilities.

Also making the list are container security tech developer Sysdig for an impressive funding round, Microsoft for its ambitious data center construction plans, Intel and Samsung for a new co-engineering partnership to develop next-generation processors and PCs, and VMware for a strategic sales hire.

IBM Steps Up AIOps, Hybrid Cloud Capabilities With Turbonomic Acquisition Deal

IBM made a big move this week to strengthen its enterprise workflow automation capabilities for hybrid cloud environments when it struck a deal – reportedly valued at up to $2 billion – to acquire Turbonomic.

Boston-based Turbonomic develops application resource management (ARM) and network performance management (NPM) software. The former is used to manage and optimize the performance, compliance and cost of application usage in real-time – a significant challenge in hybrid computing environments.

IBM plans to integrate the ARM software with the application performance monitoring and observability technology it acquired when it bought Instana in December, and with its recently introduced IBM Cloud Pak for Watson AIOps that uses AI to automate IT operations.

The combination of those technologies will create a comprehensive set of AI-powered automation capabilities that span business processes and IT.

While IBM did not disclose the Turbonomic acquisition price tag, Reuters reported that the deal was valued between $1.5 billion and $2 billion.

Sysdig Raises $188 Million To Take On Palo Alto Networks In The Cloud

Venture capital continues to flow to cybersecurity startups. This week container security tech developer Sysdig closed a Series F funding round worth $188 million, bringing the San Francisco-based company’s total financing to $394 million since 2013 and boosting its valuation to $1.19 billion.

Sysdig will use its expanded war chest to strengthen its competitive position in the cloud against Palo Alto Networks.

Threat detection and response vendor Vectra AI, meanwhile, closed its own $130 million funding round this week, pushing its valuation to $1.2 billion. The San Jose-based company will apply the new financing to accelerating its cloud security research and development, focused on safeguarding microservices in the cloud including containers and serverless technologies.

And zero trust segmentation tech vendor Illumio was reported to be looking to raise $250 million in a Thoma Bravo-led funding round that would value the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company at about $2.9 billion.

Microsoft To Build Up To 100 New Data Centers Each Year

Microsoft unveiled ambitious plans this week to spend billions of dollars to construct between 50 and 100 new data centers annually for the foreseeable future to meet the demand for its Azure public cloud services.

The cloud and software giant said this year alone it will expand its Microsoft Azure data center presence into 10 new countries. The company didn’t disclose the locations of all planned data centers, but it recently announced plans to spend $1 billion over the next five years to construct data centers in Malaysia, for example. The company is also building data centers everywhere from San Antonio, Texas and Fulton County, Georgia to Israel.

Microsoft’s plans came to light during the launch of its immersive data center virtual tour, which provides a free online tour of a simulated Microsoft data center that details the company’s investments in security, reliability, sustainability and innovation.

Intel, Samsung Team Up For New PCs, Chip Microarchitecture

Intel and Samsung are expanding their alliance to develop and market a new line of co-engineered PCs the companies say will push the envelope on mobility, connectivity and performance. Some of the PCs will eventually feature a new chip microarchitecture the companies are co-developing that will utilize different types of Intel silicon.

Intel announced the expanded co-engineering partnership this week during Samsung’s virtual Samsung Unpacked event where the company unveiled several new PCs, including the new Intel-powered Galaxy Book Pro line.

Intel and Samsung will collaborate on a new Intel chip microarchitecture that will use multiple types of processor cores, such as CPUs, GPUs and FPGAs, and other kinds of accelerators. Additional details were not disclosed.

The Intel-Samsung collaboration will develop “unique PC designs with Galaxy DNA,” the companies said, as part of the Intel Evo program. They will use AI to personalize computing experiences and improve the way people can work and share files across different devices.

VMware Nabs Cisco Sales Leader To Boost NSX, Security

Virtualization technology leader VMware made a savvy personnel move this week when it hired longtime Cisco Systems sales veteran Tom Koppelman to be its new worldwide sales leader for networking and sales solutions.

The hire is expected to boost VMware’s sales efforts in network and security products, led by its NSX portfolio. Koppelman will serve as vice president of worldwide networking and security solution sales at VMware.

Koppelman worked at Cisco for 17 years, holding various top sales executive roles focused on such key areas as enterprise networking, security, software, collaboration and data center. Most recently he was vice president of Americas architecture sales at the networking giant.