5 Companies That Came To Win This Week

For the week ending May 7, CRN takes a look at the companies that brought their ‘A’ game to the channel.

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The Week Ending May 7

Topping this week’s Came to Win list is Dell Technologies which announced the availability of the first offerings for its Apex as-a-service portfolio.

Also making the list are Hewlett Packard Enterprise for expanding its own as-a-service lineup with new data storage services, Intel for its ambitious plans to expand its chip development and production capacity, AI chipmaker Graphcore for its aggressive channel expansion plans in North America, and VMware and a number of its data center partners for launching a program to reduce the carbon footprint of their data center operations.

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Dell Apex Takes On HPE GreenLake, Public Clouds

Dell Technologies this week announced the general availability of its Apex as-a-service portfolio that’s expected to change how customers and channel partners buy, sell, deploy, manage and maintain the vendor’s vast infrastructure product lineup.

Dell said it is offering partners a market leading 30 percent incentive on Apex deals with the goal of taking market share from rival Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s GreenLake as-a-service offerings and from public cloud service providers.

Apex Data Storage Services is Dell’s first infrastructure as-a-service offering.

Dell, which held its Dell Technologies World virtual conference this week, also announced an expanded collaboration with global colocation data center giant Equinix to broaden the availability of Apex. The company also unveiled the new Apex Cloud Services with integrated compute, storage and networking resources; Apex Custom Solutions; and the Apex Console which customers – and eventually partners – will use to manage Apex services.

HPE Revolutionizes On-Premises Storage With Data Services Salvo

Hewlett Packard Enterprise wasn’t sitting idle while Dell Technologies was making its Apex announcements this week.

HPE this week unveiled a new storage-as-a-service lineup that includes a new data Services Cloud Console, a new suite of subscription storage data services, and new All-NVMe Alletra 6000 and 9000 storage systems. The cloud-based data services are available as part of the HPE GreenLake pay-per-use platform.

HPE touted the new offerings as part of its “Unified DataOps” vision and strategy that transforms HPE storage into a cloud-native, software-defined data services business.

Intel’s $3.5B New Mexico Campus Upgrade To Boost Next-Gen Chip Production

Intel this week disclosed plans to invest $3.5 billion to upgrade its New Mexico manufacturing facility with capabilities to manufacture next-generation processors.

The upgrade at the Rio Rancho, N.M., campus, first disclosed during a 60 Minutes program Sunday and detailed in a Monday press conference, will make use of Intel’s Foveros 3D packaging technology – a crucial change in how Intel will make chips in the future.

The $3.5 billion investment is expected to create 700 high-tech jobs and 1,000 construction jobs while supporting 3,500 new jobs in the community. Planning for the project is underway and the company expects to begin construction in late 2021.

The project is part of Intel’s IDM 2.0 hybrid manufacturing strategy that includes expanding internal manufacturing capacity, utilizing third-party foundries to outsource manufacturing when appropriate, and the establishment of the Intel Foundry Services.

Over the weekend Intel also announced a plan to invest another $600 million in its research and development operations in Israel.

AI Chip Startup Graphcore Makes Big North American Partner Push

Graphcore, an AI chip startup that’s taking aim at Nvidia’s data center GPU business, is making a big North American channel push this year with new and existing solution provider partners.

The Bristol, U.K.-based company told CRN that it has recruited three new North American partners including solution provider powerhouse Trace3 and high-performance computing systems integrator Applied Data Systems in the U.S. and solution provider Images et Technologie in Canada.

The company also said that three European channel partners – 2CRSi, BIOS IT and Boston Limited – are expanding their Graphcore reselling efforts in North America.

The channel roster and territory expansion of Graphcore’s Elite Partner Program, which launched last fall, comes as the chipmaker is making a big sales push this year for its AI-focused Colossus MK2 intelligence processing units.

VMware Teams With Microsoft, IBM, Equinix To Tackle Climate Change

VMware wins kudos this week for its efforts to reduce the massive carbon footprint created by data centers by launching a new program to make VMware’s cloud partners’ data centers 100-percent powered by renewable energy by 2030.

Leading data center operators including IBM, Microsoft and Equinix also deserve applause for joining the effort.

The VMware Zero Carbon Committed cloud partner initiative will accelerate the transition to zero carbon clouds through VMware Cloud Partner data centers. These verified VMware cloud partners aim to operate infrastructure, energy and carbon-efficient data centers based on VMware software defined data center technologies and have commitments to using renewable energy power.

Microsoft has committed to be carbon negative by 2030.