5 Companies That Came To Win This Week

For the week ending Sept. 18, CRN takes a look at the companies that brought their ‘A’ game to the channel.

The Week Ending Sept. 18

Topping this week’s Came to Win list is Nvidia for confirming its blockbuster $40 billion deal to acquire chip designer Arm.

Also making the list is cloud data platform company Snowflake for its IPO this week that raised $3.4 billion, the most successful software company IPO ever. HP Inc. is on the list for launching new products and solution bundles for partners at its Reinvent partner conference.

Silver Peak wins applause for offering a new SD-WAN deployment certification for partners who want to develop advanced network transformation practices. And Insight Enterprises makes the list for hiring former Dell Technologies global channel chief Joyce Mullen to be the company’s new North America president.

Nvidia To Acquire Arm In $40 Billion Chip Mega-Deal

The acquisition had been rumored for nearly two months. But this week Nvidia said that it has a deal to acquire British chip designer Arm for $40 billion. Nvidia is buying Arm from its Japanese owner, SoftBank Group.

The acquisition, presuming it overcomes any legal or regulatory hurdles, has the potential to remake the semiconductor industry landscape. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said the acquisition will make Nvidia the “world’s premier computing company.”

By acquiring Arm, Nvidia would own key underlying technologies for the CPU, GPU and network in the data center and beyond, allowing Nvidia to more tightly integrate those technologies.

Huang, in a media and analyst call, said the acquisition will allow Nvidia and Arm to combine their research, development and engineering capabilities—specifically accelerating Arm’s server CPU development road map. The acquisition also will expand on what Nvidia has already started to do with its $8 billion acquisition of interconnect vendor Mellanox Technologies.

Cloud Data Company Snowflake Goes Public In Blockbuster IPO

Snowflake, perhaps the most anticipated IT company IPO of 2020, hit it big this week when the company’s shares began trading on the New York Stock Exchange Wednesday.

Originally priced at $120 per share, Snowflake shares actually began trading at $245 per share and briefly surged to more than $300 before settling back to around $260. That put the cloud data platform company’s market capitalization around $73 billion—larger than the market capitalizations of Dell Technologies, VMware and other IT industry giants.

The IPO raised $3.4 billion. On Thursday some profit-taking brought the price of Snowflake shares down a bit closer to earth to close at $227.54. That put the company’s market cap at $63.14 billion.

Almost lost in Snowflake’s IPO blizzard was the successful IPO of machine data analytics company Sumo Logic, whose shares began trading Thursday and raised $325 million in the process.

Insight Hires Dell’s Ex-Channel Chief Mullen As New North America President

Insight Enterprises made a savvy personnel move this week when it hired Joyce Mullen, Dell Technologies’ former global channel chief, to be the solution provider’s new president of its North America business.

Insight, No. 15 on the 2020 CRN Solution Provider 500, is one of Dell’s top global channel partners with Titanium Black status. Dell products accounted for about 11 percent of Insight’s net sales in 2019. Hiring Dell’s former top channel executive is a major coup for the solution provider.

Mullen worked at Dell for 21 years and, as president of global channel, managed its massive $50 billion channel organization between 2017 and last month. She will officially start in her new job on Oct. 26.

HP Inc. Launches New Business Boost, Expands PC And Printer Lineups At Reinvent

It may have been a virtual event, but the new products and services HP Inc. unveiled at its HP Reinvent 2020 partner conference this week were very real.

Looking to simplify life for SMBs and work-from-home customers, HP debuted Business Boost, which provides a wide range of bundled solutions that include hardware devices, security technology, supplies and support services. The list of devices spans PCs, including laptops and desktops, monitors and printers, and services that include break-fix support and device monitoring for remote workers.

Business Boost, which is expected to create new opportunities for channel partners, aims to improve HP’s approach to serving SMB customers with the help of solution providers.

HP also debuted a number of new PC, monitor and printer products designed for work-from-home use. The announcements include additions to the ProBook series, new EliteDesk desktop PCs, several new monitors and a new series of LaserJet Enterprise printers.

Silver Peak Launches Certified Deployment Program For Services-Minded Partners

SD-WAN specialist Silver Peak wins kudos this week for rolling out a new channel program that’s designed to aid solution providers in differentiating their SD-WAN practices through advanced training and certification.

The new Certified Deployment Program (CDP) will help select partners resell and deploy the vendor’s Unity EdgeConnect SD-WAN edge platform, while wrapping their own services around the system.

CDP is for partners who are interested in designing, deploying, managing and sustaining SD-WAN networks for customers who are undertaking advanced network transformation initiatives, according to the vendor.

Silver Peak, which is in the process of being acquired by Hewlett Packard Enterprise, will be recruiting CDP candidates from among its top-tier Platinum-level partners with the capabilities, services and specializations around network transformation. They will be required to complete training and proctored exams, as well as meet advanced deployment certification requirements.