5 Companies That Came To Win This Week

For the week ending Dec. 12, CRN takes a look at the companies that brought their ‘A’ game to the channel including IBM, Qualcomm, AMD, Tata Consultancy Services, and the winners of the 2025 Women of the Year Awards.

The Week Ending Dec. 12

Topping this week’s 5 Companies that Came to Win list is IBM for its $11 billion deal to acquire real-time data streaming technology developer Confluent in a move to create an “end-to-end platform to connect, process and govern data for AI applications and agents.”

Qualcomm likewise makes this week’s list for its own acquisition focused on server CPUs. AMD, meanwhile, made a move in the competitive embedded CPU space with the unveiling of its new EPYC Embedded 2005 CPUs. And IT services giant Tata Consultancy Services is here for a savvy acquisition in the Salesforce services market.

And a big round of applause goes to the winners of the third annual CRN Women of the Year awards!

IBM To Acquire Real-Time Data Leader Confluent In $11B Deal

IBM tops this week’s Came to Win list for its blockbuster deal to buy real-time data streaming platform developer Confluent for $11 billion.

IBM said that with Confluent’s technology it can provide an “end-to-end platform for businesses to connect, process and govern data for applications and AI agents.”

“IBM and Confluent together will enable enterprises to deploy generative and agentic AI better and faster by providing trusted communication and data flow between environments, applications and APIs. Data is spread across public and private clouds, datacenters and countless technology providers,” IBM Chairman, President and CEO Arvind Krishna, said in a statement. “With the acquisition of Confluent, IBM will provide the smart data platform for enterprise IT, purpose-built for AI.”

Confluent, founded in 2014 and based in Mountain View, Calif., develops a series of products used to collect, process and manage continuous flows of real-time data from multiple sources—data in motion, as Confluent refers to it—for operational applications, data analysis and, more recently, artificial intelligence applications and AI agents.

Confluent is just the latest of IBM’s acquisitions in the big data arena. In May IBM bought DataStax, a developer of database, data streaming and application development software, in a bid to expand the data management capabilities of its IBM Watsonx AI product portfolio.

Qualcomm Acquires RISC-V Chip Designer Ventana To Boost CPU Efforts

Staying on the topic of strategic acquisitions, Qualcomm makes this week’s list for its acquisition of Ventana Micro Systems, a startup focused on developing server CPU technology based on the RISC-V instruction set architecture.

Qualcomm said Ventana’s expertise in RISC-V, a free and open alternative to the Arm and x86 instruction set architectures, will enhance its CPU engineering capabilities and complement “existing efforts to develop custom Oryon CPU technology.”

Oryon is at the center of Qualcomm’s push to gain footholds in the PC and server markets—and grow in other areas—as part of ongoing efforts to diversify its business beyond mobile chipsets. The company gained the custom, Arm-compatible CPU core architecture through its $1.4 billion acquisition of startup Nuvia in 2021.

Qualcomm, which has already been using RISC-V for some products outside the PC and server markets, said Ventana’s contributions will boost its “technology leadership in the AI era across all businesses,” indicating the broad impact expected by this acquisition.

AMD’s New Embedded CPUs Go After Intel On Performance, Energy Use And Size

AMD made a big move in the embedded CPU space this week, looking to take on rival Intel with the debut of its new EPYC Embedded 2005 CPUs.

AMD said the new processors offer big advantages in performance, energy use, size and features compared with competing products from Intel. Set to enter production in the first quarter of next year, the Embedded 2005 series processors pack up to 35 percent faster base CPU frequency using half the power of Intel’s Xeon 6503P-B and coming in a form factor that is 2.4 times smaller, AMD said.

With AMD marketing the chips for AI networking, storage and industrial edge use cases that need to operate around the clock, the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company said that the Embedded 2005 series provide a balance of compute, energy efficiency and I/O capabilities that Intel can’t offer with a single product.

AMD is also touting the new CPUs’ “enterprise-class” reliability, availability and serviceability features for things like hardware fault protection, firmware fault recovery and secure boot.

TCS Buys Salesforce Star Coastal Cloud For $700M To Create ‘Top Five Salesforce’ Firm

Returning to the topic of strategic acquisitions, IT services giant Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is acquiring Coastal Cloud, a top Salesforce consulting partner, for $700 million in a move to boost its AI business, U.S. customer base and Salesforce prowess.

The news of the all-cash deal comes just two months after the $30 billion, India-based TCS acquired ListEngage, a U.S.-based Salesforce partner.

TCS said buying Coastal Cloud will strengthen its Salesforce advisory and consulting business globally via Coastal Cloud’s 400 cloud professionals who have more than 3,000 multi-cloud certifications.

“Coastal Cloud’s multi-cloud capabilities strongly complement TCS’ existing Salesforce strength—and together with ListEngage’s expertise—we are poised to build a world-class Salesforce practice to deliver full-stack, custom solutions globally,” said Vikram Karakoti, TCS global head of enterprise solutions, in a statement.

With the acquisitions of ListEngage and Coastal Cloud, TCS said it will be “among [the] top five Salesforce advisory and consulting [firms] globally.” Karakoti said the two acquisitions significantly expand TCS’ “geographic presence, deepen our sector capabilities, and significantly strengthen our talent pool.”

CRN Women Of The Year 2025: The Winners

And a big congratulations to this year’s winners of the third annual CRN Women of the Year Awards.

In a ceremony at the historic Gotham Hall in Manhattan this week CRN and parent The Channel Company honored extraordinary women throughout the channel, spotlighting their most noteworthy achievements from the past year.

Over the course of the evening, CRN gave out 19 trophies to women, allies and companies. The celebration marked the culmination of a months-long process that included two rounds of judging and concluded with the 2025 Women of the Year Awards Gala event.

The evening included the naming of the 2025 Women of the Year Lifetime Achievement Award winner: Joyce Mullen, president and CEO of Insight Enterprises.