Five Companies That Came To Win This Week

Amazon Lets Business Customers Resell Excess Cloud Capacity

Amazon Web Services on Wednesday rolled out Reserved Instances Marketplace, which lets its cloud business customers resell unused server capacity.

Under the new program, customers pay a one-time fee for capacity which entitles them to discounts on their hourly server usage charges. The contracts, called Reserved Instances, last for one or three years. Amazon says Reserved Instances contracts can save businesses up to 71 percent compared to buying capacity on-demand.

VMware Launches vCloud Suite 5.1, Showcases vCloud Director

With vCloud Suite 5.1, which became available this week, VMware is bundling vCloud Director with vSphere and its other management, security and storage products. The idea is to get its cloud management platform for virtual data centers into the hands of more customers and partners.

"VMware is going to force vCloud Director everywhere, and that is going to force the channel to learn it," Steve Kaplan, vice president of virtualization and cloud at Presidio Networked Solutions, Greenbelt, Md., told CRN. "Customers are going to get it in the [vCloud Suite 5.1] bundle, and they're going to want to know how to use it and what to do with it."

Nimble Storage Nabs $40.7 Million VC Round, Plans IPO

Nimble Storage scored a $40.7 million venture capital round that brings the San Jose, Calif.-based startup's total funding to date to $98 million.

Nimble Storage develops flash storage technology with high-capacity hard disk drives. Its Cache Accelerated Sequential Layout (CASL) technology is used in storage arrays with up to 36 TB of raw capacity, with high-end features such as dynamic caching thin provisioning, scale-out clustering, instant snapshot and recovery, and data replication over a WAN.

Intel Touts Its Forthcoming 'Haswell' Core Processors

Intel is talking about its fourth-generation "Haswell" Core processors, which the chip maker is using for the coming wave of ultrabooks and convertible PCs in the second half of next year. Intel unveiled its upcoming 22-nm Haswell processors at its Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco.

David Perlmutter, executive vice president, general manager, Intel Architecture Group and chief product officer, said the fourth-generation Core processors based on the new Haswell microarchitecture will be nearly 20 times more power efficient compared to second-generation Sandy Bridge processors. Their low power consumption and high performance make them ideal for mobile devices, ultrabooks and hybrid PCs.

"It was designed with mobility in mind," Perlmutter told an IDF audience of roughly 5,000 people. "Anything from sleek tablets to an Ultrabook to eventually a high-performing desktop and workstation."

HP Says Its Windows 8 Tablet Will Be Serviceable, Expandable

In an exclusive interview with CRN, Todd Bradley, executive vice president of HP's Printing and Personal Systems business unit, said HP's Windows 8 tablet is designed to be serviceable, meaning partners can open it up and tailor it to specific vertical business solutions.

"This is the only serviceable tablet there is," Bradley told CRN. "It is serviceable, and it is expandable."