5 Companies That Came To Win This Week

The Week Ending Sept. 5

This week's roundup of companies that came to win includes Hewlett-Packard's latest gains in the server market, a gutsy move by Box in the market for enterprise-class file-sharing services, Samsung's smartphone launch one week before Apple's anticipated iPhone 6 debut, Cisco's significantly expanded unified computing systems product portfolio, and a savvy cloud acquisition by Westcon Group.

HP Wins The Q2 Server Market-Share Sweepstakes

Hewlett-Packard remained king of the server market in the second quarter, beating rivals IBM and Dell in both server revenue and unit shipments, according to an IDC report released this week.

HP's server revenue in the quarter grew 4 percent to $3.2 billion. Unit shipments were down 2.6 percent to just less than 570,000 units -- still more than its competitors. Dell's server sales fell 6.5 percent to $2.1 billion and dropped 11.7 percent in unit shipments, according to IDC. IBM's server sales plunged 10.2 percent to $3.0 billion and unit shipments were down 9.8 percent.

Cisco Launches Major UCS Line Refresh

Cisco significantly expanded its unified computing system portfolio this week in a move the company described as the biggest refresh since the 2009 launch of the UCS product line.

Leading the new converged infrastructure product lineup is the M-Series modular servers targeted toward large businesses and cloud service providers. Also new was the UCS Mini that packages server, networking and storage into a single, small form factor system. Unified computing has been one of the hottest areas of the IT industry in recent years and this week Cisco demonstrated it intends to continue to be among the market's leaders.

Westcon Acquires Cloud Distribution Platform Developer

Value-added distributor Westcon Group strengthened its hand in the cloud computing arena this week when it acquired Verecloud, a developer of a cloud services distribution platform.

Verecloud will serve as the foundation of Westcon's cloud services aggregation and brokerage services. The capabilities of the Verecloud platform include a cloud services catalog, solution bundling, white-label-branded solutions, automated life cycle management services, and more. Westcon is building channel enablement services around the platform, such as billing-as-a-service, marketing, upselling, legal contracts and technical support.

Samsung Unveils Two Smartphones And A Smartwatch

Stealing a little thunder from the pre-iPhone 6 launch hoopla, Samsung this week unveiled two new smartphones: the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 and the Samsung Galaxy Note Edge. And in anticipation that Apple might unveil its long-rumored iWatch, Samsung also debuted its Gear S smartwatch, the sixth in the company's lineup.

Is Apple worried about being upstaged? Not sure, but its stockholders appear to be. Apple stock, which closed at $103.30 a share Tuesday, closed at $98.94 Wednesday -- the day of Samsung's announcement -- and stood at $98.12 a share at the close of trading Thursday.

Box Targets Enterprise Market With New Services, Partnerships

Last week cloud services giant Amazon Web Services began offering its Zocalo file-sharing services to a wider audience, targeting some of the same small businesses and even consumers that have been the bread-and-butter business for Box, Dropbox for Business and Google Drive.

This week Box demonstrated that it's not intimidated by AWS and made moves into Amazon's enterprise turf with its own cloud storage and cloud file sync and share services. Box, at its BoxWorks conference in San Francisco, demonstrated new data retention and workflow capabilities, integration with Microsoft Office 365, and an initiative for building Box into industry-specific applications.