5 Companies That Came To Win This Week

The Week Ended Sept. 6

This week our roundup of companies that came to win include Verizon's taking full control of its destiny in the wireless service arena, a Microsoft victory in a long-running patent dispute, a new channel chief at a major networking IT vendor, an updated channel program at another, and Hewlett-Packard's latest Moonshot offering.

Also, be sure to check out our roundup of 5 Companies That Had A Rough Week.

Verizon Pays $130B For Vodaphone's Stake In Verizon Wireless

Telecommunications giant Verizon is paying $130 billion in cash and stock to acquire Vodaphone's 45 percent stake in Verizon Wireless, the largest mobile communication service provider in the U.S.

Gaining full control of Verizon Wireless will help Verizon in its efforts to expand into such emerging markets as big data and machine-to-machine, as well as to better meet surging demand for 4G LTE and broadband services. Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam said the deal would provide Verizon with more opportunities in enterprise and consumer wireline markets.

Jury Rules In Microsoft's Favor In Motorola Mobility Patent Dispute

A federal court jury handed Microsoft a big victory this week when it awarded the software company more than $14 million in damages in a long-running patent dispute with Motorola Mobility.

The jury agreed with Microsoft's contention that Motorola Mobility, now owned by Google, breached agreements to license its standards-based patents at a fair and reasonable rates. Those agreements were with industry groups that control those standards including the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE).

The dispute involved Motorola's patented technologies that have become part of industry standards in wireless usage and online video viewing. While the jury award itself isn't huge (many patent lawsuits today involve billions of dollars), Microsoft trumpeted the verdict as a victory over what it called Google's abuse of patents.

Brocade Names New Global Channel Chief

Brocade's channel partners are adjusting to industry trends such as data center virtualization, software-defined networking and cloud computing. This week the company appointed a channel veteran to be its new channel chief to help partners with that transition.

Brocade appointed Bill Lipsin as the company's new vice president of worldwide channel and global systems integrator sales. He replaces Regan McGrath who is now sales vice president for the Americas region. In addition to taking McGrath's channel chief duties, Lipsin is also charged with managing the company's Global Systems Integrator team

Lipsin's resume includes global vice president of channels and alliances at Arbor Networks and head of the global channel sales team at CA Technologies. He's also worked at Bay Networks and IBM.

HP Intros Intel Atom Avoton-Based Moonshot Server Technology

Hewlett-Packard's Moonshot high-density server line has been garnering a lot of attention among the vendor's channel partners and customers. But, HP isn't sitting still when it comes to pushing the technology's limits.

HP this week debuted a new server cartridge, the HP ProLiant m300, for the server line based on Intel's new Atom Avoton 8-core processor. Given that each HP Moonshot server chassis can support up to 45 cartridges, each complete system can now have up to 360 cores. And, that means customers can build a rack of servers with 3,600 cores -- a lot of compute power.

The new cartridges will boost Moonshot's capabilities for such power-hungry tasks as application hosting and big data processing.

Ciena Focuses On Services, Value-Based Approach With Partner Program Redesign

IT vendors often preach the need for solution providers to focus more on the services and other value-added activities. But, many partner program incentives remain based on sales volume.

Telecommunications networking equipment supplier Ciena is putting its money where its advice is, updating its BizConnect partner program to place more emphasis on services and what channel chief Nigel Williams calls partner "self-sufficiency."

The changes, slated to take effect in November, will transform BizConnect from a predominately volume-based program to one based on value and services partners bring to the table. Ciena will work with partners earlier in the sales cycle, for example, and offer new network design and quoting tools for greater control over customer accounts and IT infrastructures. Ciena also will more tightly link its own services organization with BizConnect to work with Partners.