5 Companies That Came To Win This Week

VMware Steps Into Public Cloud, Carefully

VMware entered the public cloud IaaS market with its unveiling of vCloud Hybrid Service, which allows customers to move workloads between on-premise private clouds and public cloud infrastructure that VMware manages and operates.

VMware's entry into a space it had previously allowed partners to handle is a big change, but the vendor has a clear path for its channel partners to participate. VMware plans to offer a hybrid cloud SKU, and partners will be able to bill their customers directly for services.

VMware is also planning to share its Hybrid Cloud intellectual property with service provider partners so they'll be able to make the transition more easily.

Tripwire Acquires nCircle, Aims To Create Security Powerhouse

Tripwire acquired nCircle in a deal that will create a security giant skilled in the highly refined arts of vulnerability management and reporting.

The combined company could compete more effectively against HP, IBM, Symantec and McAfee in the vulnerability and configuration management market, CEOs from both vendors told CRN. In 2012, the two companies' combined bookings were approximately $140 million; together they had more than 500 employees and more than 7,000 customers in 96 countries, Tripwire said.

Samsung Prepares For B2B, Channel Marketing Blitz

Samsung is preparing to launch a global B2B marketing campaign aimed at highlighting commercial applications for its tablets, notebooks, printers and memory. Samsung also intends to launch a new B2B-focused website this July that will feature new lead-generation services and visitor tracking, said Richard Hutton, director of channel marketing at Samsung Electronics America, at XChange Solution Provider 2013.

Samsung is also opening an executive briefing center in May that will showcase Samsung products for B2B opportunities and offer training and education around those products.

Oracle Acquires OpenStack Cloud Startup Nimbula

Oracle revealed plans to acquire Nimbula, a private cloud infrastructure management startup whose co-founder and CEO, Chris Pinkham, helped create Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud. Nimbula, which has embraced OpenStack, helps companies manage infrastructure and workloads in private and hybrid cloud environments. The amount of the deal wasn't disclosed, but it's expected to close before the end of June.

EMC Outlines Plan To Become $30 Billion Company

EMC believes it can become a $30 billion company by 2016, and this week in a meeting with Wall Street investors, its executives shared details on how they plan to get there.

David Goulden (pictured), EMC president and COO, said EMC's revenue has grown about three times faster than the storage business as a whole, and he doesn't see any reason why that won't continue. "We believe we are well positioned to grow faster than the marketplace," Goulden said at the event.