5 Companies That Came To Win This Week
The Week Ending June 20
This week's roundup of companies that came to win includes signs of growth at BlackBerry, a key flash technology acquisition by SanDisk, a new processor from Intel that promises significant performance gains, a new channel-exclusive backup appliance from Carbonite, and a hefty financing round for a key player in the DevOps arena.
BlackBerry Surprises With Q1 Profit, Launches App Partner Program
While BlackBerry's turnaround has a long way to go, the company showed surprising signs of life this week. Most unexpected was the mobile device maker's $23 million profit in reported net income in its first fiscal quarter (a $60 million loss when several one-time gains and charges were included), up from a loss of $84 million in the same period one year earlier and a $423 million loss just three months ago.
But BlackBerry's signs of improvement go beyond the numbers. The company disclosed plans to make the Amazon Appstore and its 240,000 applications available to Blackberry users with the release of BlackBerry 10.3 this fall. Also this week the company rolled out a partner program for ISVs, systems integrators and corporate developers aimed at expanding the number of apps that leverage the Blackberry OS.
SanDisk To Acquire Fusion-io, Become Enterprise Flash Storage Provider
SanDisk is acquiring Fusion-io for about $1.1 billion in a deal unveiled this week that will give the flash storage technology developer a strong flash-based PCIe hardware and software portfolio. That brings SanDisk closer to its goal of becoming a leading supplier of high-value flash storage solutions for enterprise-class applications.
The flash storage industry is undergoing consolidation and SanDisk has moved aggressively to make sure it's among those that come out on top. Last year the company acquired Smart Storage Systems, a developer of enterprise-class SATA and SAS solid state drives, and in 2012 it bought Schooner Information Technology, a developer of availability and caching software for database applications.
Intel Debuts Xeon-FPGA Hybrid Chip Aimed At Carriers, Cloud Service Providers
Intel flexed its technology innovation muscles this week, unveiling a new chip product that marries its Xeon microprocessor architecture with a customizable FPGA chip. The company promised the combination would offer dramatically improved performance -- 10 to 20 times better -- for cloud service providers and carriers.
Much has been made of the competition Intel faces from vendors developing servers built on low-power ARM processors. Intel executives said the development of the new microprocessor strengthens its position as a one-stop shop for processors for its large customers.
Puppe t Labs Lands $40 Million In Funding
IT automation software developer Puppet Labs closed a $40 million Series E round of funding this week, money the Portland, Ore.-based company will use to boost its worldwide staff, including its sales force.
The company sells a commercial version of the Puppet open-source IT management software that automates time-consuming data center tasks. The company is a key player in DevOps, the collaborative processes between software developers and IT operations teams that are being increasingly adopted by large companies.
Carbonite Moves Deeper Into SMB Market With Data Protection Appliance
Cloud backup and recovery service company Carbonite this week launched its first hardware appliance offering the small-business market a product that combines fast local data restores with cloud data storage. The company is selling the appliance exclusively through the channel.
Carbonite began as a consumer-focused cloud backup service, but has been steadily growing its SMB business in the past couple of years and has relied on the channel for that growth. Company executives said the new Carbonite Appliance HT10 is the first of a series of backup appliances the company is developing to expand its business offerings.