5 Companies That Came To Win This Week

The Week Ending July 28

Topping this week's roundup of companies that came to win is Mitel for its planned $530 million acquisition of ShoreTel that makes Mitel a major player in the UCaaS market.

Also making the list are PCM, which won a round in its ongoing legal battle in the wake of its acquisition of En Pointe; Big Switch Networks for its big funding round that it plans to devote to growing its channel operations; Intelisys for an innovative new financing program that lets partners leverage their recurring revenue for hardware purchases; and Xerox for its new program to provide training and accreditation for its managed print services partners.

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.

Mitel Aims To Become A UCaaS Powerhouse With ShoreTel Acquisition

Mitel made a bid to become one of the biggest vendors in the Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) market this week when it struck a deal to acquire ShoreTel for $530 million.

The acquisition will give Ottawa-based Mitel annual sales of $1.3 billion, with a broader communications and collaboration product portfolio, and will double the company's UCaaS annual revenue to $263 million. After the acquisition Mitel will have 4,200 partners and 3,200 channel partners.

The companies expect to complete the acquisition sometime this quarter.

PCM Wins Arbitrator Ruling Over BPO Contract Tied To En Pointe Acquisition

PCM has won a round in the ongoing feud over its 2015 acquisition of EnPointe, receiving a favorable ruling from an arbitrator that allows PCM to get out from under a business process outsourcing deal gone sour.

An arbitrator ruled that PCM's contract with Pakistani business process outsourcingr partner Ovex Technologies terminates no later than Aug. 18, PCM CFO Brandon LaVerne told financial analysts Wednesday.

Once the contract expires, PCM plans to move the services from the Ovex contract to a service provider in the Philippines. En Pointe acquired a 70 percent stake in Ovex in 2006 and it was a captive supplier of low-cost sales, purchasing, operations, help desk, accounting and IT services.

PCM is currently embroiled in multiple lawsuits related to the EnPointe acquisition, including against Ovex, former En Pointe CEO Bon Din, and competitor Zones where former En Pointe government sales director Imran Yunus went last year. PCM claims that Din, Zones and Ovex's executive management have conspired to raid PCM's Pakistani workforce and take En Pointe confidential information with them to Zones.

Big Switch Networks Raises $30 Million To Scale And Expand Channel Operations

Software-defined networking specialist Big Switch Networks raised $30.7 million in a new round of financing and the company plans to use the funds to scale and expand its channel partner and strategic alliances programs.

The company announced the funding Wednesday and said it would generally devote the funding to support the company's sales, product and geographical expansion.

But CEO Douglas Murray, in an exclusive interview with CRN, said the focus of the latest funding round is "on how we scale the company from a go-to-market channel point-of-view."

Big Switch hired veteran executive Claudio Perugini in June as its new vice president of worldwide channels and he has been putting together a comprehensive channel strategy and expanding the company's ecosystem of distributors and VARs. The $30 million should come in pretty handy.

New Intelisys Program Lets Partners Use Recurring Revenue As Hardware Collateral

Master agent Intelysis, a ScanSource company, has debuted an innovative financing program that lets channel partners apply their monthly recurring revenue from Intelisys services as collateral to purchase IT hardware through distributor ScanSource.

Financing purchases of IT hardware for resale can be a cash flow challenge for solution providers who rely on recurring revenue from selling cloud services.

The unusual financing program from Intelisys, called the Hardware Purchasing Power Program, will help bridge that gap by making it easier for partners to resell hardware along with cloud and connectivity services. The new program cleverly leverages the synergy created by ScanSource's acquisition of Intelisys last August.

Xerox Launches MPS Accreditation Program With Eyes On Huge SMB Growth

Xerox made a significant move this week to step up its support for its top managed print services (MPS) partners by unveiling an accreditation program designed to bring more of that business to the channel.

Companies that join the Xerox MPS Accreditation Program gain access to enhanced sales and marketing support, specialized training and exclusive analytics tools designed to help partners penetrate the largely untapped SMB market.

Industry analysts put the MPS saturation level in SMB markets at only 24 percent, leaving plenty of room for growth. Xerox sees a major opportunity to grow its $3 billion MPS business – and the new program will help expand that opportunity to the company's partners.