5 Companies That Came To Win This Week

The Week Ending Sept. 14

Topping this week's roundup of companies that came to win are Lenovo and NetApp, which joined forces to develop storage systems to compete with the industry leaders.

Also making the list this week are security vendor Bomgar for its savvy acquisition of BeyondTrust; Wasabi for its $68 million round of funding; Vonage and Ephesoft for launching new partner programs; and SensLynx for providing partners with an easy way to enter the IoT market.

Not everyone in the IT industry was making smart moves this week, of course. For a rundown of companies that were unfortunate, unsuccessful or just didn't make good decisions, check out this week's 5 Companies That Had A Rough Week roundup.

Lenovo And NetApp Join Forces To Take On Dell, HPE In The Storage Arena

Lenovo and NetApp this week unveiled a strategic partnership to attack the storage system market and launched new all-flash array and hybrid flash storage systems. Through the alliance Lenovo and NetApp intend to compete head-to-head with storage system heavyweights Dell EMC and Hewlett Packard Enterprise.

The two vendors announced the alliance at Lenovo's Transform 2.0 conference.

Lenovo and NetApp are co-developing storage systems that combine NetApp's all-flash data management technology with Lenovo's ThinkSystem server infrastructure. The new products leverage core software from NetApp and are being manufactured by Lenovo.

The two companies also announced a new joint venture company in China that will market storage products and data management systems developed to meet the specific requirements of the Chinese market and that country's cloud ecosystem.

Bomgar To Buy BeyondTrust To Fortify Position In Privileged Access Security Market

Bomgar made a bold move this week when it struck a deal to acquire BeyondTrust in a move that will create an industry heavyweight in the market for privileged access security technology.

Both companies offer products for privileged access security: BeyondTrust with its access management platform and Bomgar with its advanced privilege session and endpoint protection tools.

The merger of the two, according to the companies, will create the broadest portfolio of products for securing and defending organizations against threats related to the compromise and misuse of security privileges.

The combined company, which will carry the BeyondTrust name, will have 800 employees and $300 million in annual bookings.

Wasabi Raises $68M As It Takes On Cloud Rivals Amazon And Google

Disruptive cloud storage technology vendor Wasabi caught people's attention this week when it said that it had raised $68 million in Series B funding.

The startup said the new financing will provide the fuel it needs to compete against its much larger rivals, including Amazon Web Services and Google. The company plans to use the money to boost its sales and marketing efforts and expand geographically, including in Europe.

Interestingly, the company said the funding came from friends and family, rather than traditional venture capital sources.

Wasabi says it can provide cloud storage at a fraction of the cost of its big-name competitors. Co-founder and CEO David Friend said the company is experiencing month-to-month revenue growth of 30 percent to 40 percent.

Flash storage system manufacturer Datrium also wins applause for its successful D series of financing, announced this week, that raised an impressive $60 million in new funding.

SensLyx Offers VARs An Easy, Profitable Way Into IoT

SensLyx, a developer of GPS-based fleet tracking and asset management systems, has fired up a new partner program that provides an easy and profitable way for solution providers to get into the Internet of Things market.

Through the new GPS Management Accelerator Program, SensLyx is providing VARs and other reseller partners with a bundled solution, including GPS hardware and a cellular service subscription, that can quickly generate a recurring revenue stream.

The partner program offers demo units of the system, sales leads, and assistance with sales presentations. As partners sell the SensLyx systems they earn points toward additional marketing resources.

Vonage, Ephesoft Launch New Channel Partner Initiatives

Cloud communications provider Vonage and document capture application developer Ephesoft win kudos this week for launching new partner programs and stepping up their channel activities.

Vonage this week debuted the Nexmo Connect Partner Program, a partner ecosystem that is designed to bring together solution providers, application designers and IT vendors in a bid to create custom communication solutions for enterprise customers.

Rather than rewarding partners for doing business with Vonage, as with traditional partner programs, the goal of the new program is to help partners leverage each other's strengths.

Ephesoft, which develops enterprise document capture and data discovery software, rolled out a revamped global partner program with improved margins and enhanced deal registration. The goals of the new program are to grow business with the vendor's existing 250 active partners and to recruit new partners.