5 Companies That Came To Win

IBM Grabs Top Spot In Industry Patents For 20th Straight Year

IBM was granted 6,478 patents during 2012 by the USPTO, topping the annual list of U.S. patent recipients compiled by IFI Claims Patent Services for the 20th straight year. IBM's total was nearly 1,400 more than runner-up Samsung and 3,300 more than third-place finisher Canon.

IBM, in a press release, gave credit for its "record-setting 2012 patent tally" to its team of more than 8,000 inventors in the U.S. and 35 countries around the world.

SAP Brings In-Memory Hana Database To ERP

SAP, in a bold move aimed at taking advantage of one its hottest technologies, is using its Hana in-memory database to power its flagship ERP app, SAP Business Suite.

SAP says the move will result in a 100X to 10,000X application performance boost, while also increasing analytical performance by 10X to 1,000X.

"Many did not believe this was possible," Hasso Plattner (pictured), SAP co-founder and chairman of the company's supervisory board, said of the three-year development project in a press conference.

HP Launches Vertica Certification For Big Data-Hungry Partners

HP has been slow to bring its Vertica analytics platform to the channel, but that changed this week when HP rolled out a Vertica certification program for partners.

Partners can obtain the Vertica certification in person through a three-day class, or they can opt for a four-day virtual training course, both of which culminate in a certification exam. Having obtained that, partners will be able to work with Vertica, a big data offering that HP Software chief George Kadifa has said could potentially become a billion-dollar business.

EMC Adds Storage, Cloud Automation With iWave Buy

EMC acquired iWave Software, a storage and cloud automation software vendor, without making any sort of public announcement. Its stance on the deal could best be described as muted.

The deal was much more of a big deal to iWave, though. Its CEO, Brent Rhymes, gushed about the deal marking the culmination of partnership between the companies spanning several years.

"Now, as part of EMC, iWave is poised for some truly exciting and exponential growth in what is becoming one of the hottest storage software capabilities," Rhymes wrote in a blog post.

Security Startup FireEye Lands $50 Million VC Round, Preps For IPO

If you've never heard of FireEye, that's probably going to change in the coming months. The Milpitas, Calif.-based security vendor, run by former McAfee CEO Dave DeWalt, closed a $50 million venture capital round that brings its total funding to date to more than $100 million.

FireEye plans to spend the money on bringing in more executive talent. There's even talk of an IPO later this year, according to VentureBeat.