Five Companies That Came To Win This Week

Apple Wins MWC Mobile Device Award Without Being At MWC

As if the Apple fanboys and fangirls needed anything else to be smug about, Apple's iPhone 4 managed to win the award for best mobile device at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this week without actually being at the show. As mobile device makers jockeyed for attention at MWC, Apple watched haughtily from a position above the fray without offering a shred of perceptible satisfaction with its achievement.

We know that the iPhone is popular, but it has now officially veered into the territory of comic absurdity.

Meanwhile, the iPad helped Apple overtake HP as the top global shipper of mobile PCs, according to new research from DisplaySearch. Apple shipped 10.2 million notebook and tablet PCs, while HP shipped 9.3 million units during the quarter.

Lenovo Rides Surging PC Sales To Solid Q3

Lenovo's U.S. tablet strategy may be murky, but the PC maker's profit jumped 25 percent during the third quarter due to strong demand for computers in China and other global markets.

Although Lenovo warned of uncertainty ahead, which has become de rigueur for tech companies these days, the company still took the opportunity to crow about how its strong quarter validates its Attack and Protect competitive stance.

Datalink Racks Up Highest Quarterly Profit Since 2006

Solution provider Datalink on Thursday reported its highest quarterly profit in five years and set an all-time revenue record, a reflection of the mountain of channel business that exists right now for VARs in the data center and cloud.

Datalink, Chanhassen, Minn., attributed the solid financials to its successful integration of two acquisitions. Its October 2009 acquisition of Incentra boosted its storage and server business while also deepening its Cisco and Microsoft relationships. Datalink's acquisition of Cross Telecom that same month brought expertise in converged storage, networking, and data center virtualization.

Datalink would be wise to consider investing in Ray-Ban, because the future is looking very bright.

Nvidia Fast Tracks Kal-El Processor, Offers Glimpse At Roadmap

At the Mobile World Congress this week, Nvidia showed off its new quad-core mobile processor, code-named Kal-El, and offered a look at its mobile processor roadmap for the next three years. Nvidia said Kal-El offers Web browsing that's twice as fast as current dual-core mobile chips.

Nvidia plans to introduce new mobile processors in each of the next three years: a processor code-named Wayne will arrive next year, followed by one code-named Logan in 2013 and one code-named Stark in 2014, the last of which Nvidia claims will feature 75x the performance of Tegra 2.

Cisco Partners Gushing Over Small Business Advances

Cisco has been eyeing the small business space hungrily for the better part of a decade, and its acquisitions over the past few years have now coalesced to the point where partners are declaring "mission accomplished".

Cisco says the number of partners selling its small business products has jumped 15 percent year over year while small-business deals have increased 15 percent as well. Cisco now has more than 25,000 active small-business partners and 9,000 partners registered as SMB Select, the SMB-focused partner specialization it introduced in 2004.

"They get it," Dan Schwab, co-president of D&H Distributing, told CRN recently. "They're investing in small business and also doing a lot of education, really trying to understand the market dynamics, whether it's talking to customers or making sure they're working with engineering to build the right price and feature set."