Five Companies That Came To Win This Week

For the week ending Oct. 17, CRN takes a look at the companies that brought their ‘A’ game to the channel including LevelBlue, Oracle, Aryaka, IBM and Intel.

The Week Ending Oct. 17

Topping this week’s Five Companies that Came to Win list is LevelBlue, the AT&T cybersecurity spin-off, for a strategic acquisition in the XDR space.

Also making this week’s list is Oracle for launching a new multi-cloud services reseller program, Aryaka for completing a major overhaul of its own partner program, IBM for an acquisition that will strengthen its hand in the SAP application regulated industries space, and Intel for debuting a new inference GPU semiconductor.

And a special shoutout to the individuals and companies that were the recipients this week of the inaugural Best of the Channel Awards.

LevelBlue Will Buy Cybereason In XDR Push

LevelBlue, the AT&T cybersecurity spin-off that’s become a standalone managed security solutions provider, said this week that it would acquire cybersecurity firm Cybereason, which focuses on extended detection and response (XDR). Financial terms of the deal for La Jolla, Calif.-based Cybereason were not disclosed.

LevelBlue said the addition of Cybereason’s advanced XDR platform, combined with capabilities from recently acquired managed detection and response specialist Trustwave and consulting firm Stroz Friedberg, would allow the company “to offer faster, more accurate detection and response, significantly reducing threat dwell times and containing threats before they spread.”

Cybereason — founded in 2012 in Israel by Lior Div, Yonatan Striem-Amit, and Yossi Naar — had raised a total of $955 million in funding, according to PitchBook.

Oracle Launches Multi-Cloud Services Reseller Program, Universal Credits

Oracle is enabling preferred resellers to sell its Oracle Database@AWS, Oracle Database@Azure and Oracle Database@Google Cloud multi-cloud services and is offering cross-cloud universal credits to streamline procurement and governance with flexible terms and consistent contracts for Oracle Database and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure products and services across the three biggest public clouds.

The Austin, Texas-based database and cloud products and services vendor this week said it is opening up the Database@ services for VARs, systems integrators, MSPs and other partner types as a way to “meet customers where they are,” Nathan Thomas, Oracle’s vice president of multi-cloud for Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, told CRN in an interview.

“There are a lot of customers who really want to be able to consume directly through those partners,” Thomas said.

Oracle has seen “a lot of engagement” from systems integrators and other partners in its multi-cloud business already, but they couldn’t conduct the actual resale themselves. “We are continuing to enable new revenue streams for partners and ensure that they have ways to participate in the success and growth of the multi-cloud business,” Thomas said. “That’s something we are absolutely going to continue to do day in and day out.”

The universal credits should provide a centralized mechanism for contracting and tracking commitment and usage across various vendor marketplaces, Thomas said. For Microsoft customers, as an example, they can leverage their Microsoft Azure Consumption Commitment with Oracle Database@Azure purchases.

Aryaka Overhauls Channel Program To Sustain ‘Explosive’ Growth In Global SASE, Security Sales

Sticking with the topic of partner program upgrades, SASE specialist Aryaka makes this week’s Came to Win list for completing a significant revamp of its channel program to support the company’s high growth and rapidly expanding partner ecosystem, Nick Alagna, Aryaka’s vice president of global channels, told CRN.

The relaunch of Aryaka Accelerate will incentivize collaborative selling and reward partners with simplified pricing and financial incentives and resources for onboarding, enablement and marketing, the company announced this week.

“Our overall business is growing. Partner recruitment is up, and we needed a refined partner program to really support our additional partners,” Alagna said. “Customers want simplicity. They’re looking to converge networking and security, and they want to realize those cost savings, which has been fantastic for us as a business. We’ve seen some pretty explosive growth.”

Alagna, who joined the company in March, said that the new program includes a “give to get” partnership model. Aryaka is also putting more structure around MDF to help partners with demand generation and marketing campaigns, while overhauling training for partners, he said.

The newly refurbished Aryaka Accelerate program offers a new tiered model with two levels: Authorized and Elite. These tiers will offer incentive driven discounts, joint go-to-market planning and lead generation, and formal certification and enablement programs for partners. The new program includes a redesigned onboarding process to help partners get to market faster, the company said.

IBM To Boost SAP Regulated Industries Skills With Cognitus Buy

Returning to the subject of savvy acquisitions, IBM plans to buy SAP S/4HANA services provider Cognitus to grow its skills in digital transformation for regulated industries and to leverage the provider’s proprietary, SAP-endorsed software assets that are enabled by artificial intelligence.

The Armonk, N.Y.-based technology giant is buying Cognitus in part for its Cognitus CIS-GovCon government contracting software, Cognitus CLM contract lifecycle management offer for government contractors, and its Cognitus Data Migration low-code, AI product aimed at migrating data from legacy systems to SAP S/4HANA, according to an IBM statement.

The vendor did not reveal a closing date or financial details for the acquisition, but more information could come up during IBM’s next earnings call Wednesday.

“Clients are turning to trusted partners that know their industries inside and out and can deploy AI-powered solutions to their enterprise operations," Neil Dhar, IBM Consulting Americas managing partner, said in a statement. "Cognitus brings deep industry expertise and proprietary AI technology that improves the efficiency of SAP implementations and will extend the functionality of tools across our SAP portfolio."

Dallas-based Cognitus, founded in 2002, focuses on end-to-end SAP S/4HANA implementations and application maintenance services, according to the IBM statement. The company is a Gold & Co-innovation partner with SAP.

Intel Reveals 160-GB, Energy-Efficient Inference GPU As Part OF New Yearly Cadence

Intel this week revealed a 160-GB, energy-efficient data center GPU that is part of a new annual GPU release cadence to deliver on the chipmaker’s new strategy of providing open systems and software architecture for AI systems.

Code-named “Crescent Island,” the new GPU is “power- and cost-optimized” for inference workloads running on air-cooled enterprise servers, according to Intel. The GPU features Intel’s Xe3P microarchitecture that is optimized for performance-per-watt, 160 GB of LPDDR5X memory and support for a broad range of data types.

The semiconductor giant said it plans to start sampling Crescent Island with customers in the second half of 2026. Until then, Intel is developing and testing what it’s calling an open and unified software stack for heterogeneous AI systems on the company’s Arc Pro B-Series GPUs to “enable early optimizations and iterations.”

The announcement confirms CRN’s previous reporting last month that Intel had an unannounced GPU design with a lower power requirement for servers on its road map that could arrive next year at some point.

2025 Best Of The Channel Awards: The Winners

And a special shoutout to the individuals and companies that were the recipients this week of the inaugural Best of the Channel Awards.

At a ceremony held in the Egyptian Ballroom at the iconic Fox Theatre, CRN and parent The Channel Company recognized some of the channel’s most remarkable leaders for the role they play in advancing the IT channel.

Over the course of the evening, CRN handed out trophies in 12 categories to individuals, teams and companies, part of a months-long process that included two rounds of judging and culminated with the 2025 Best of the Channel Awards Gala event.

The evening also included the naming of the Best of the Channel Lifetime Achievement Award winner.