5 Companies That Came To Win This Week

The Week Ending Aug. 30

This week's roundup of winning companies include Symantec earning a victory in federal court, Dell gaining market share in the server wars and VMWare making a blockbuster hire. Also, RingCentral files for a $100 million IPO while Pure Storage receives $150 million in funding.

Federal Judge Tosses Symantec Lawsuit

Symantec earned a victory that was seven years in making when a federal judge threw out a lawsuit that was filed in 2006. The suit claimed that users of Symantec's pcAnywhere, Norton SystemWorks, Norton AntiVirus Corporate Edition and Norton Internet were harmed by a data leak because those products might have been exposed to malicious source code.

A Texas resident, Kathleen Haskins, claimed in the lawsuit that users "were deprived of the benefit of their bargain because they did not receive a fully functional Symantec product."

U.S. District Court Judge Jon S. Tigar did say that Haskins could file an amended complaint within three weeks. However, as of now, the lawsuit has been tossed. "Plaintiff has not demonstrated her standing to bring this action, and the complaint must be dismissed," Tigar wrote in the court order granting Symantec's motion to dismiss the case.

RingCentral Files For $100 Million IPO

Cloud communications company RingCentral threw its hat into the Wall Street ring Monday when it announced it has filed paperwork for an inital public offering worth $100 million, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The 14-year-old company is based in San Mateo, Calif., and boasts 1,200 employees. The company applied for listing its Class A common stock under the symbol "RNG." Wall Street heavyweights Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan and Merrill Lynch are listed as underwriters in the filing.

RingCentral has seen its revenue increase from $50.2 million in 2010 to $114.5 million in 2012. However, it has yet to make a profit.

VMware Names Scott CIO

VMware pulled off a major executive move Monday as it introduced former Microsoft executive Tony Scott (pictured) as its new CIO. Scott left his previous post as Microsoft CIO in May, with the company saying he'd be focusing on "personal projects."

In his new role, Scott will be responsible for managing the company's technology systems and will report to CEO Pat Gelsinger. This position has been vacant since last December, when former CIO Mark Egan departed.

"Tony will have responsibility for advancing and protecting VMware information assets, leading a team that is helping VMware meet the IT needs of more than 500,000 customers worldwide," Gelsinger said in a statement.

Scott certainly has an impressive resume. Prior to joining Microsoft in 2008, he was CIO at Disney, CTO at General Motors and vice president of operations at Bristol-Meyers Squibb.

Dell Earns More Server Market Share

The server battle between Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Dell and Oracle continues to heat up, and while Dell might not be top dog just yet, it is certainly making headway.

According to server market-share data released separately Wednesday by research firms Gartner and IDC, Dell bucked market trends by making significant server revenue gains.

Dell's big jump was due in large part to shipments of density-optimized servers, which are favored by large service providers and Internet companies, according to Gartner.

Pure Storage Raises $150 Million In Funding

Pure Storage had plenty of reasons to smile this week when it closed what it called the largest-ever funding for an enterprise storage company. The company, founded in 2009, raised $150 million from high-powered investors including T. Rowe Price, Fidelity Investments and Tiger Global Management. According to President Dave Hatfield, the company now has a total value of more than $1 billion.

"For us, it's an opportunity to double down on R&D," he said. "We already have an 18-month to 24-month lead in technology. We also want to extend our market reach. We are currently in 10 markets outside North America, but there others we can reach."

Pure Storage also said former Data Domain CEO Frank Slootman has joined the company as both a board member and strategic adviser.