Five Companies That Came To Win This Week

For the week ending July 26, CRN takes a look at the companies that brought their ‘A’ game to the channel including ServiceNow, Mimecast, Google Cloud, Liongard and Accenture.

The Week Ending July 26

Topping this week’s Came to Win list is ServiceNow for a strategic acquisition focused on GenAI-based search technology.

Also making this week’s list in Mimecast for its own savvy acquisition around data protection. Google Cloud makes the list for some aggressive pricing moves around its VMware Cloud service offerings while Liongard is here for its new attack surface management offerings that will help MSPs prevent cybersecurity attacks. And Accenture continued its aggressive acquisition strategy this week with its 30^th acquisition in 2024.

ServiceNow Acquires Raytion For GenAI-Powered Multi-Site Search

ServiceNow’s efforts to build out its GenAI-based search capabilities got a major boost this week with the company’s acquisition of Raytion, a developer of enterprise search connector technology used to integrate content from third-party systems.

While ServiceNow has been developing its AI search capabilities for years, the Raytion acquisition will give ServiceNow users the ability to search across all of a company’s enterprise knowledge systems including ServiceNow, Salesforce and Atlassian. ServiceNow will integrate the Raytion capabilities into its search engine.

While ServiceNow has had a long-time relationship with Raytion, the company felt an acquisition would be better for the long-term, Dorit Zilbershot, ServiceNow vice president of AI product management, told CRN. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

This week ServiceNow also made a strategic investment in telecom services provider Prodapt and said it is working with Boomi to elevate customer experiences through AI-powered self-service capabilities.

Mimecast Acquires Veteran Data Security Firm Code42

Speaking of savvy acquisitions, email security provider Mimecast will add 175 employees with the acquisition of longtime cybersecurity vendor Code42. Mimecast did not disclose the terms of the acquisition.

Code42 in recent years has focused on expanding its data protection platform, Incydr. Code42 recently disclosed enhancements to Incydr aimed at providing more-accurate detection of source code exfiltration as a way to offer complete visibility around the movement of source code.

Mimecast said the addition of Code42’s data loss prevention and insider threat management capabilities will allow the company to provide customers with “comprehensive visibility and strategic insight across the expanding attack surface.” Code42’s technology will be integrated with Mimecast “over the coming months,” the company said in the release.

The 175 employees from Code42 will join Mimecast’s current staff of more than 2,000, the company told CRN.

Google Cloud Cuts VMware Cloud Prices

Google Cloud is putting a full court press on urging VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) customers to migrate their VMware workloads to the Google Cloud Platform by lowering its commitment pricing by 20 percent and offering up to 40 percent in migration incentives, the company said this week.

Google Cloud is also providing expanded support for VMware license portability to the Google Cloud platform. Google and Broadcom, which acquired VMware in 2023, will support license portability for VCF, enabling customers to preserve their VMware investments by porting their on-premises VCF licenses to Google Cloud VMware Engine (GCVE).

With VMware Cloud Foundation on GCVE now generally available, Google launched the 20 percent lower commitment pricing for VMware Cloud Foundation.

Additionally, the company is offering commercial incentives up to 40 percent of GCVE first-year spending as additional migration and consumption incentives. Alongside Google Cloud partners, Google is also offering free proof of concepts and trials for customers seeking to migrate their VMware workloads to Google Cloud.

Liongard Teaching MSPs How To Become ‘Managed Attack Surface Solution Providers’

In a week when cybersecurity issues were on everyone’s mind, Liongard wins applause for unveiling its innovation roadmap and buildout of its attack surface management platform that will better equip MSPs to identify and prevent attacks before they happen.

“We’re teaching MSPs to become managed attack surface solution providers,” Michelle Accardi, Liongard CEO, told CRN. “We are showing them how they can monetize and really be the trusted advisers around delivering managed attack surface capabilities, which are necessary to avoid problems. If you don’t know what’s changing and you don’t keep a good audit trail of what’s changed, who’s changed things and how they’ve changed, you’re ripe for problems.”

The new attack surface management platform is needed to solve those problems, she said. It helps MSPs automate their IT asset inventory, understand what’s changing in configuration state and identify those vulnerabilities. It then maps into a cyber risk dashboard that shows the cyber posture of their customers, which they can then share and monetize. Accardi said it gives MSPs the ability to offer a new service tied to an existing one they’ve been offering all along.

The cyber risk dashboard now provides MSPs with critical details on multifactor authentication enforcement based on security defaults, which enable them to identify and mitigate any potential risks associated with authentication.

The company also unveiled its innovation road map that highlights resiliency, orchestration, automation and remediation (ROAR). With ROAR, policy gaps are detected and addressed in real time, allowing for quick remediation and an enhanced overall security posture.

“It’s a comprehensive approach to cyber resiliency, and it’s designed to harden the attack surface,” Accardi said. “It’s enabling MSPs to take swift action and remediate issues as they’re identified, ensuring a proactive stance against potential threats.”

Accenture M&A Hits 30 In 2024 With Buy Of SAP Partner Camelot

Returning to the subject of aggressive merger and acquisition activity, Accenture continued its acquisition spree this week when it bought Camelot Management Consultants, a top digital supply chain consulting service provider in the SAP space.

With the acquisition of Germany-based Camelot, Accenture looks to boost its SAP and AI-driven supply chain expertise to help clients build more resilient and more intelligent supply chains. Camelot will also help drive sales in analytics, data strategy and modernization by helping Accenture customers build a foundation for accelerating the adoption of AI.

In May 2023, Accenture acquired a similar SAP-focused consulting specialist with the purchase of Norway-based Einr.

The Camelot deal marks Accenture’s 30^th acquisition in 2024. Other purchases this year span the gamut of IT as well as global footprint – ranging from Boston-based supply chain company OnPress Technology and New York-based cloud MSP Navisite to London-based cloud security consultancy 6point6 and Italy-based generative AI specialist Ammagamma.