5 Companies That Came To Win This Week

The Week Ending June 19

This week's roundup of companies that came to win include Hewlett-Packard's Windows 10 coup; a storage technology startup's launch and venture financing win; a key Intel acquisition that could help the chipmaker expand beyond the sluggish PC microprocessor arena; evidence of a wireless networking vendor's commitment to the channel; and NetSuite's hire of a key channel manager away from one of its main competitors.

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 Five Companies That Had A Rough Week roundup.

HP Beats Microsoft To The Punch With A Windows 10 Tablet

One would think that since Microsoft is developing the Windows 10 operating system, it would leverage that advantage by debuting a Windows 10-based edition of its Surface Pro tablet before anyone else. Nope.

This week, Hewlett-Packard unveiled an enterprise-ready Windows 10 tablet, the HP Pro Tablet 608, entitling it to bragging rights for being the first to announce a Windows 10 device.

Windows 10 is slated for general availability July 29, and HP plans to ship the Pro Tablet 608 with Windows 10 preinstalled in August.

Startup Cohesity Exits Stealth With $70M Funding, Launches Converged Storage Technology

Aiming to disrupt the secondary storage technology market, Cohesity, the closely watched startup created by Nutanix Co-Founder Mohit Aron, officially launched this week with the debut of the company's converged secondary storage system. The company also announced that it had raised a whopping $70 million in venture funding.

The Cohesity Data Platform, a high-density storage array, is designed to handle data stored for such secondary purposes as data protection, DevOps and business analytics, in contrast to data that's held in primary storage systems for production transaction-processing tasks.

Intel Buys Recon Instruments In Move To Expand Into Wearables Technology

Intel, in a savvy move that will help the chipmaker expand into the potentially lucrative smart wearables and Internet-of-Things arenas, this week acquired Recon Instruments for an undisclosed sum.

The acquisition gives Intel a way to expand beyond the sluggish PC processor market that has been a drag on the company's financial results. In April, CEO Brian Krzanich told Wall Street analysts that he expects the PC market to decline at a mid-single-digit rate this year.

Recon Instruments makes smart eyewear for sports enthusiasts. The acquisition brings to Intel a wearables computing development team that the company can leverage to expand into head-mounted display products and other technologies.

AirTight Networks Hires First Channel Chief, Plans 100 Percent Channel Strategy

Cloud-based wireless specialist AirTight Networks hired former Aruba Networks sales leader Kester Kyrie as its first official channel chief, CRN learned this week. And he vowed in an interview that the company would adopt a 100 percent go-to-market strategy.

Kyrie, vice president of worldwide sales and channels, wins kudos for saying the company would scale its two-tier distribution strategy and reroute any direct business to the channel. "My goal is to make AirTight the most channel-friendly Wi-Fi vendor in the market," he said.

NetSuite Snags Former Microsoft Dynamics Channel Exec

NetSuite continues to expand its channel management expertise, making a key channel management hire this week that's a loss for rival Microsoft.

CRN learned that NetSuite has hired Doug Kennedy, a longtime manager of channel operations for Microsoft's Dynamics ERP and CRM applications business. Kennedy is charged with managing NetSuite's relationships with its key systems integrator partners.

NetSuite's cloud applications compete head-to-head with the cloud versions of Microsoft Dynamics software. Luring Kennedy away is a big win for NetSuite and a loss of channel expertise for Microsoft.