Five Companies That Came To Win This Week

Ruckus Wireless Starts Preparing For Its IPO

Ruckus Wireless has hired Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs to help it prepare for an IPO later this year, according to published reports this week.

Ruckus currently controls about 27 percent of service provider Wi-Fi mesh node shipments, according to the Dell'Oro Group. Its ZoneFlex products have attracted attention from small and midsize businesses, and the scrappy company is also moving into the enterprise WLAN territory that has long been the domain of Cisco and Aruba Networks.

David Callisch, vice president, corporate marketing, declined to comment on the IPO reports, but told CRN Ruckus is "exploring all opportunities."

"It's an exciting time to be in the carrier Wi-Fi space," Callisch said. "And we seem to be growing by leaps and bounds."

Cisco Acquires Network Data Analysis Technology That Never Stops

Cisco is back on its feet and ready to go shopping, and this week it acquired Truviso, a maker of realtime network data analysis and reporting software. Truviso's team will join Cisco's Network Management Technology Group, and its software analytics will be integrated into Cisco Prime, Cisco's network management software platform.

Truviso calls its technology "continuous analytics," which describes its ability to analyze data as it's streamed. This is different from most business intelligence offerings, which collect data and then run analysis queries. Truviso's platform is based on open-source PostgreSQL database software.

Nvidia Debuts GTX 690 Kepler-Based GPUs

Nvidia this week took the wraps off its GTX 690, the latest model in its GeForce graphics card lineup that's aimed at the high-end PC and gaming enthusiast market.

The GTX 690 is a dual GPU card based on Nvidia’s 28nm Kepler architecture. Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang could barely control his excitement as he unveiled the product at a gaming conference in Shanghai this week.

He described the GTX 690 as Nvidia's fastest gaming card to date. "I’m incredibly proud of GTX 690. We designed this graphics card from the ground up to deliver the highest performance of any graphics card in history," Huang said at the gaming conference.

Comcast Raises Its Profile In The Channel

Comcast's Business Class division launched its channel program last March with a goal of making clear the advantages of having a single trusted adviser handling hardware, software, telecom and cloud.

Comcast's channel order volume increased by a magnitude of more than 15 times over the past year, following the 100 or so orders Comcast had a month after the launch, Craig Schlagbaum, vice president of sales, indirect channels at Comcast, told CRN this week.

"We're starting to gain a lot of traction in the solution provider worlds," he said.

Data Center Giant Quanta Embraces The Channel

Quanta Computer, the Taiwan-based original design manufacturer (ODM) whose equipment powers the data centers of Facebook, Amazon and other large firms, is now looking to market its products in the U.S. -- with the help of channel partners.

Through its new U.S. branch office in Fremont, Calif., Quanta is now selling the same server, storage and networking equipment it offers to its ODM customers through the channel, signing up Synnex and ASI as distributors. Quanta made the announcement at the Open Compute Summit, held this week in San Antonio.