5 Companies That Came To Win This Week

The Week Ending Aug. 28

Topping this week's roundup of companies that came to win is startup Velostrata's launch of a potentially ground-breaking product that could boost the hybrid cloud market.

Also making the list is Intel's savvy hire of a new channel chief for its security business; NetSuite's recruitment of a key Microsoft channel partner; Hortonworks' acquisition of a big data startup; and Veeam's plans for its upcoming disaster recovery cloud service.

Not everyone in the IT industry was making smart moves this week, of course. For a rundown of companies that were unfortunate, unsuccessful or just didn't make good decisions, check out this week's Five Companies That Had A Rough Week roundup.

Velostrata Debuts Tech That Tears Down A Major Barrier To Cloud Adoption

Israeli-American startup Velostrata exited its stealth phase this week with software that entirely decouples compute operations from data storage. While simple in concept, the company's technology eliminates what has been a major barrier to hybrid cloud adoption.

Until now, commonly accepted wisdom was that storage and compute had to be adequately coupled to provide satisfactory performance, CEO Issy Ben-Shaul told CRN. That's slowed some organizations, wary of moving their data outside the data center, from fully embracing cloud computing.

Velostrata's product allows businesses to take advantage of public cloud compute services, such as Amazon Web Services, while keeping their data within their own facilities. That has the potential to significantly accelerate adoption of hybrid cloud systems.

Intel Security Nabs Avaya's Channel Chief As New Head Of Global Partners

Intel Security this week named former Avaya top channel executive Richard Steranka as the company's new head of Global Channels.

The hire is a win for Intel. Its worldwide channel chief post has been vacant for nearly six months after former channel chief Gavin Struthers was tapped to serve as president of Asia-Pacific for Intel's security business, previously McAfee.

Steranka joined Avaya in 2012 and served as vice president of Avaya's worldwide partner organization since 2013. The channel veteran is credited with leading a drastic overhaul of the unified communications vendor's Connect Partner program, converting it from one focused on sales volume to one based on value. Prior to Avaya, Steranka spent 19 years at Cisco in a variety of channel, marketing and distribution roles.

NetSuite Inks Cloud Partnership With Longtime Microsoft Partner Tribridge

Cloud application vendor NetSuite this week signed a reseller deal with Tribridge, a longtime Microsoft partner that has a business built around that vendor's Dynamics ERP applications.

The move is a coup for NetSuite, which views Microsoft Dynamics as one of its chief competitors.

Tribridge has an established private cloud and on-premise ERP application business built around Microsoft's Dynamics applications. But CEO Tony DiBenedetto told CRN that he saw a need to provide customers with a public cloud option, and this week the company joined NetSuite's Solution Provider Program to resell the vendor's ERP and e-commerce cloud applications.

Tribridge's focus on specific industries will help NetSuite expand into such vertical markets as health care.

Hortonworks Acquires Data Collection Technology Startup

Hortonworks is best known as one of the leading distributors of the Hadoop big data platform. But the company knows that one of the biggest challenges of big data is collecting disparate data from multiple sources and analyzing it in real time.

This week, Hortonworks acquired Onyara, a startup that develops software that collects and curates streaming data from sensors, geo-location devices, machines and even social networks, and loads it into Hadoop and other systems for analysis. Hortonworks this week also unveiled DataFlow, a new product based on the Onyara technology.

As the Internet of Things takes off, software like DataFlow will be in big demand. With its moves this week, Hortonworks is positioning itself to meet that demand.

Veeam Readies Aggressive Cloud Disaster-Recovery Push

Fast-growing Veeam Software was gearing up this week to make a splash at next week's VMworld with its new Cloud Connect Disaster Recovery-as-a-Service offering.

Planned for a fourth-quarter release as part of Veeam Availability Suite v9, Cloud Connect is expected to be a hit among the company's channel partners because it provides a way for them to build an enterprise cloud disaster-recovery subscription business with rich margins.

Veeam CEO Ratmir Timashev (pictured) told CRN that the new offering would provide a way for solution providers to shift from a traditional reseller business model to a recurring-revenue, monthly managed services cloud business.