5 Companies That Had A Rough Week

The Week Ending Nov. 11

Topping this week's roundup of companies that had a rough week are a trio of top executives at Datalink who will be out of a job once Insight Enterprises completes its acquisition of Datalink early next year.

Also making the list this week were Yahoo, which revealed that some insiders may have known about a massive security breach as far back as late 2014; Samsung, which took out full-page ads in national newspapers apologizing for the Galaxy Note 7 fiasco; LinkedIn, which is being shut out of Russia; and Microsoft, which scrambled to fix a serious Windows vulnerability that was outed by Google.

Not everyone in the IT industry was having a rough go of it this week. For a rundown of companies that made smart decisions, executed savvy strategic moves – or just had good luck – check out this week's 5 Companies That Came To Win roundup.

Datalink Top Execs Are Out Following Insight Acquisition

Three of Datalink's four top executives will be out of a job once Insight Enterprises completes the $258 million acquisition of Datalink that was announced this week.

Word of the executives' pending departure follows the release of Datalink's third-quarter results Monday that showed a 7 percent drop in revenue and a 58 percent plunge in reported earnings.

Early Monday Insight unveiled a deal to acquire Datalink for $258 million and the companies expect to complete the acquisition in the first quarter of 2017. News that Datalink CEO Paul Lidsky, CFO Greg Barnum and HR executive vice president Patty Hamm will all leave the company when the acquisition closes was disclosed in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Only Datalink COO Shawn O'Grady will remain to lead the company's enterprise data center field business.

Yahoo Investigating Whether Insiders Knew About Massive Security Breach Long Before Going Public

Yahoo, already reeling from the news that some 500 subscriber accounts were compromised by a massive security breach, is investigating whether some inside the company were aware of the hack as far back as late 2014.

Word of the internal investigation was disclosed this week in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Yahoo is in the process of being acquired by Verizon for $4.8 billion. But following Yahoo's disclosure of the security breach incident, there have been reports Verizon may be looking to renegotiate the deal or even walk away from it. If it turns out that Yahoo insiders were aware of the problem almost two years earlier, that could put the deal even more in jeopardy.

LinkedIn To Be Blocked In Russia

LinkedIn faces the prospect of being blocked in Russia after a Russian court ruled Thursday that the social networking site for professionals broke the country's data protection laws.

Stories in The New York Times, The Washington Post and other sources said the case comes at a time of mounting tensions for U.S. companies operating in Russia.

Access to LinkedIn, which is in the process of being acquired by Microsoft, will reportedly be blocked within days because LikedIn failed to move personal data storage to inside the country.

Samsung Runs Full-Page Newspaper Ads Apologizing For Exploding Smartphones Fiasco

Mea culpas are never easy. But this week Samsung ran full-page advertisements in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post apologizing to customers for its Galaxy Note 7 smartphones that caught fire and in some cases even exploded.

The problems with the Galaxy Note 7, one of the biggest product disasters in the history of the consumer electronics industry, led initially to a worldwide recall of the smartphone and eventually its complete discontinuation.

Some might argue that apologizing in such a big way is a step that could be seen as a win for the manufacturer. And it's certainly true the ads mark a first step by the company to rebuild its tarnished reputation. But it's hard to see how anything connected with the Galaxy Note 7 fiasco can be considered a win.

Microsoft Scrambles To Fix Google-Outed Windows Flaws

Microsoft scrambled this week to develop a fix for security flaws in Windows that Google disclosed last week before a patch was ready.

The patch fixes vulnerabilities in multiple generations of Windows, from Vista to Windows 10, which Microsoft said could allow an attacker to take control of a system through the use of a malicious app.

Google publicly disclosed the flaw just 10 days after informing Microsoft of the problem, causing some friction between the two companies. Google said attackers were already exploiting the vulnerability.