5 Companies That Came To Win This Week

For the week ending Sept. 17 CRN takes a look at the companies that brought their ‘A’ game to the channel.

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The Week Ending Sept. 17

Topping this week’s Came to Win list is Apple, for continuing to push the innovation envelope with the latest generation of its popular iPhone, as well as updates to its iPad and Apple Watch products.

Also making the list this week are Hewlett Packard Enterprise for a critical top management hire, JumpCloud for an impressive funding round, cybersecurity ratings firm BitSight for a key acquisition, and video conferencing giant Zoom for launching a new reseller program for its Zoom Phone service.

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Apple Launches iPhone 13 Models, New iPads, Apple Watch 7

Apple’s consumer tech prowess was on full display this week as the company debuted four new models in the iPhone 13 series at its fall product event.

While the iPhone 13 is more of an iterative update to the hugely successful iPhone 12, the new generation of Apple’s flagship product offers a range of enhancements including the new A15 Bionic processor, a brighter display, improved cameras and double the starting storage capacity. Like the iPhone 12, the iPhone 13 supports both types of 5G connectivity.

Apple also introduced the new iPad (9th Gen) and iPad Mini (6th Gen), along with the next generation of the Apple Watch, the Series 7, with improved displays and faster charging.

HPE Snatches Away VMware Cloud Services GM To Be New CTO

Hewlett Packard Enterprise made a savvy move in the personnel department this week when the company hired away Fidelmo Russo, VMware’s cloud services general manager, to be HPE’s new CTO.

Russo, a 37-year IT industry veteran, will be responsible for managing the design, development and roadmap for HPE’s Greenlake platform-as-a-service. HPE made it clear that recruiting Russo is part of a stepped up GreenLake development effort.

Russo, who before working at VMware spent six years as Dell’s enterprise storage and software senior vice president, replaces Kumar Sreekanti, senior vice president, CTO and head of software, who HPE announced in August is retiring.

JumpCloud Raises $159M To Expand Its Cloud Directory Platform

JumpCloud closed an impressive Series F round of funding this week, raising $159 million that the company will use to accelerate development of its cloud directory platform. The funding boosted the company’s valuation to $2.56 billion.

The company intends to apply some of the new financing to driving channel sales initiatives, ultimately growing the volume of the company’s revenue through the channel from 15 or 20 percent today to roughly half of the company’s business. The company also plans to better leverage its base of more than 1,200 MSP partners to reach more SMB customers.

JumpCloud wasn’t alone in the venture funding arena this week. Data integration tech developer Matillion raised $150 million in its own Series E round that pushed its valuation to $1.5 billion. And Microsoft Cloud automation tech developer SkyKick raised $130 million in its own successful funding round.

BitSight Acquires Startup VisibleRisk, gets $250M From Moody’s

Cybersecurity ratings firm BitSight made a strategic acquisition this week when it bought cyber risk assessment startup VisibleRisk.

BitSight said it plans to create a risk solutions division, headed up by VisibleRisk co-founder and CEO Derek Vadala, to help chief risk officers, CISOs, c-suite executives and company directors financially quantify risk.

BitSight also pulled in a $250 million investment from credit ratings giant Moody’s, which values BitSight at $2.4 billion.

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Zoom Phone Will Be Promoted Through Resellers Via New Partner Program

Video conferencing giant Zoom Video Communications wins kudos this week for launching a new partner program that will give channel partners the opportunity to sell Zoom Phone Bring Your Own Carrier (BYOC) licenses.

Zoom Phone is a cloud-based service introduced in 2019, which Zoom has offered through its master and sub agent channel. Now the company wants to get its reseller partners to tap into the increasingly profitable voice market.

The new reseller program for Zoom Phone BYOC, currently a pilot program for select partners, will open to a wider audience of resellers by the end of this year, the company said this week at its Zoomtopia Partner Connect 2021.