5 Companies That Came To Win This Week

The Week Ending May 19

Topping this week's roundup of companies that came to win is VMware, which acquired Apteligent with plans to roll the company's performance and monitoring technology into VMware's cloud and end-user management business.

Also making the list is security startup Crowdstrike, which landed $100 million in funding; security player CSPi, which unveiled new products and said it aims to recruit new partners; ePlus, which acquired software developer OneCloud; and SAP, whose executives told partners this week at Sapphire Now about the plan to ramp up sales of its SAP S/4HANA Cloud suite through the channel.

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 5 Companies That Had A Rough Week roundup.

VMware Acquires App Intelligence Startup Apteligent

VMware this week acquired startup Apteligent, a provider of mobile application performance and monitoring technology.

"We're looking to make manageability across the cloud and end-user computing more intelligent," said Shekar Ayyar, executive vice president of strategy and corporate development and general manager of VMware's Telco Group, in an interview with CRN. "We're looking for batter manageability across the entire VMware management platform."

Apteligent's technology automatically captures and interprets application data to provide user insight and information to help provide mobile business performance. VMware plans to roll Apteligent's technology into VMware's cloud and end-user management business. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

Crowdstrike Lands $100M Funding Round, Plans To Invest In Partners

Startups in the security technology area have been attracting some serious financing in the past couple of years. But $100 million still gets people's attention.

This week Crowdstrike said it raised $100 million in Series D funding from CapitalG, Warburg Pincus, March Capital Partners and Testra. The round brings the company's total funding to $256 million and gives it a market valuation of greater than $1 billion.

Crowdstrike will apply the new financing to continued development of its technology, to global expansion plans, and to increase its sales and marketing efforts. The company also will use some of the funds to expand its channel operations: The channel accounts for the majority of Crowdstrike's business.

CSPi Seeks New Channel Partners After Launching Security Product Line

Security technology vendor and solution provider CSPi is taking a deeper dive into the channel, moving to attract new partners with the launch of a new threat visibility and data capture product line.

This week the company's High Performance Products division launched its new Myricom nVoy Series 10-Gbit Packet Broker, which gives security teams the ability to isolate and closely monitor access to important data such as personally identifiable information or sensitive intellectual property.

CSPi is offering the new products to channel partners in its Myricom Global Channel Program, which the company formed three years ago, as well as using the new products to recruit and on-board new solution providers to the program.

ePlus Acquires Software Developer OneCloud

Solution provider ePlus Technology acquired software development specialist OneCloud Consulting in an effort to boost its DevOps and OpenStack expertise.

"OneCloud's skills and expertise further strengthens our hybrid IT capabilities, enabling our clients to achieve their business objectives," said Mark Marron, CEO of ePlus, in a statement. Milpitas, Calif.-based OneCloud, which partners with Cisco, VCE, Docker and Red Hat, employs a team of consultants, data center architects and technical trainers.

Herndon, Va.-based ePlus Technology, ranked No. 34 on CRN's 2016 Solution Provider 500 list, also acquired this year Consolidated IT Service in a bid to expand ePlus' practice around Cisco products into the Upper Midwest market.

SAP Eyes Accelerated Cloud ERP Application Sales Through The Channel

SAP, holding its massive Sapphire Now conference for 30,000 customers and partners this week, told partners that the company plans to ramp up sales of its SAP S/4HANA Cloud suite of ERP applications – and it's counting on the channel to help.

SAP S/4HANA Cloud, which the company launched in February, is the cloud edition of the company's flagship SAP S/4HANA suite of ERP applications. ERP software is generally considered one of the last categories of software that businesses are moving to the cloud. The company also markets SAP Business ByDesign, the company's original Software-as-a-Service ERP application set geared toward midsize businesses.

SAP executives, including CEO Bill McDermott and channel chief Rodolpho Cardenuto, said this week that they are accelerating efforts to move ERP customers to the cloud. They touted the service opportunities that will create for SAP's channel partners and said the company is devoting more resources to its channel operations to help achieve that growth.