Five Companies That Came To Win This Week

Facebook Raises $16 Billion In Biggest Internet IPO Ever

Facebook had its IPO on Friday, and the social networking company and its early investors sold more than 421.2 million shares at the opening price of $38, giving it a market cap of more than $104 billion.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg rang the opening bell for the Nasdaq Stock exchange via video link from corporate headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif., and then updated his Facebook status to " listed a company on Nasdaq."

Facebook could raise more than $18 billion in its IPO, an amount that would dwarf the $1.67 billion Google raised in its 2004 IPO.

Samsung Passes Nokia In Device Sales, Sees Frenzy Of Galaxy S III Pre-Orders

Samsung got a double dose of good news this week. First, Gartner figures showed it had eclipsed Nokia for the top spot in worldwide mobile device sales. Then, the Korea Economic Daily reported that the company has racked up more than 9 million pre-orders for its forthcoming Galaxy S III smartphone, which is set to arrive May 29.

Intel Touts Security, Remote Management In Third-Generation vPro

Intel this week unveiled its third-generation Intel Core vPro processor platform, touting its security, remote management, and performance enhancements for the coming wave of Ivy Bridge-fueled notebooks, desktops, workstations, all-in-ones and Ultrabooks.

Intel channel partners can re-sell vPro, while managed services providers can leverage it for their own remote management needs, Jason Kennedy, product line manager for vPro processor platform, told CRN.

"The MSPs are absolutely seeing this as a huge opportunity for both differentiation as well as increasing their service level agreements," he said.

Lenovo Launches ThinkServers For Cloud, Virtual Environments

Lenovo this week took the wraps off two ThinkServers -- the RD530 and RD630 -- for cloud and virtualization deployments. The RD530 and RD630 ThinkServers are part of Lenovo's campaign to boost its profile in the enterprise server and workstation market.

The RD530 and RD630 ThinkServers use Intel’s Xeon E5-2600 processors and include 320 GB of RAM. They also deliver a 160 percent power-per-watt improvement compared to previous ThinkServer products.

"The products we are announcing today are a step up from typical SMB towers," Kevin Nelson, executive director of Lenovo’s newly formed Enterprise Systems Group, told CRN.

SAP Pumps Up Volume On HANA In-Memory Database

At its Sapphire Now conference this week, SAP aggressively highlighted the scalability and performance of its HANA in-memory database, positioning it as an attractive platform for developers.

SAP also unveiled several applications and a new data discovery and visualization tool that are all built on HANA, which improves functioning of IT systems by rapidly processing large volumes of structured and unstructured data and speeding complex analytical queries.

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