5 Companies That Had A Rough Week

The Week Ending May 26

Topping this week's roundup of companies that had a rough week are Brocade and its channel partners, who were reported to be having trouble closing deals following a sales reorganization at the vendor.

Also making the list this week were Optiv Security for losing a key executive, Hitachi for bailing on the mainframe hardware business after 50 years, Android users who face a new security risk, and Samsung for accidentally announcing a pair of new smartphones.

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 Five Companies That Came To Win roundup.

Partners Struggling To Close Brocade-Ruckus Sales Amid Restructuring

A sales restructuring at Brocade Communications has added confusion and delay to the storage and networking vendor's field engagement operations, making it difficult for solution providers to close deals and who, in some cases, are moving business to rival vendors, CRN reported this week.

The organization has added multiple layers to the channel engagement process and made it difficult for partners to reach Brocade and Ruckus account managers, engineers and sales representatives.

The sales reorganization aims to lay the groundwork for the sale of Brocade to Broadcom and the subsequent sale of the Brocade networking and Ruckus wireless businesses to new owners. But in the short term it's creating headaches for Brocade, its partners and its customers.

Brocade Channel Chief Sandra Glaser Cheek told CRN that the vendor is focused on resolving the sales engagement issues as "quickly as possible through proactive communications and personal outreach to partners."

Optiv Security Loses Key Cloud Security Executive

Losing top talent is always tough for IT companies. This week CRN reported that solution provider Optiv Security lost one of its top executives when JD Sherry, vice president of cloud security and strategy, left the company.

Sherry has taken the job of chief revenue officer at Remediant, a developer of privileged account management software. Sherry disclosed the move on his LinkedIn profile and confirmed to CRN his departure from Optiv.

Hitachi Exits Mainframe Hardware Business

After 50 years as a vendor of mainframe systems, Hitachi has stopped building its own mainframes and will instead sell IBM mainframes running the Hitachi VOS3 operating system.

Hitachi stopped selling mainframes outside of its native Japan in 2000, but until now had continued to sell its AP line of mainframes to major organizations in Japan, according to a story on The Register website.

But now Hitachi will exit the mainframe hardware business altogether and supply IBM's z Systems instead, according to the report.

Android Features Leave Millions At Risk Of Attack

Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology warn that two features that are core to the Android mobile operating system can be used together to launch an attack and gain control of a target's phone, according to a Threatpost report.

The problem involves two Android features: System Alert Window and Bind Accessibility Service, according to Threatpost. The Georgia Institute of Technology research builds off an earlier report from Check Point Software Technologies that identified permission flaws in the way Android handles System Alert Window overlays, Threatpost said.

Google has said it will address the issue in an upcoming release of Android O, rather than issue a patch, according to Threatpost.

Oops! Samsung Accidently Confirms Galaxy J5 And J7 Smartphones

Samsung has yet to officially announce its upcoming pair of entry-level Android smartphones. But the company accidently confirmed their existence when it launched a product page for the latest edition of its "Kids Mode" application, according to a report on the Android Headlines website this week.

While the Galaxy J5 (2017) and J7 (2017) smartphones have yet to be officially announced, both were listed on the product page among the Galaxy-branded devices that are compatible with the latest release of Kids Mode, a parental control tool, according to the story.