5 Companies That Came To Win This Week
For the week ending April 22 CRN takes a look at the companies that brought their ‘A’ game to the channel.
The Week Ending April 22
Topping this week’s Came to Win list is ThreatLocker for an impressive funding round that moves the cybersecurity provider close to unicorn status.
Also making this week’s list are global solution provider World Wide Technology for its innovative program to deal with the engineering talent shortage, PTC for a strategic acquisition in the application life-cycle space, and solution provider NWN Carousel for launching new bundled solutions to address hybrid work needs.
Systems integrator Accenture rounds out the list for accelerating its already torrid pace of acquisitions.
ThreatLocker Scores $100 Million In Funding, Approaches Unicorn Status
ThreatLocker raised $100 million in funding this week in a Series C round that puts the cybersecurity superstar on track to achieve a $1 billion valuation this year. The funding round was led by private equity firm General Atlantic.
The funding comes as ThreatLocker becomes a go-to cybersecurity offering for MSPs. ThreatLocker is expected to add 700 new MSPs to its roster in April with CEO Danny Jenkins expecting to add 3,000 MSPs through 2022.
ThreatLocker plans to use the additional funding to fuel new breakthrough developments for the company’s zero-trust security technology, such as its ground-breaking “default deny” whitelisting and ring-fencing capabilities, that meet the security needs of MSPs and their customers. The company, for example, is currently beta-testing new network access control technology for its platform.
WWT Tackles Talent Shortage With Homegrown Engineer Training Program
Finding and hiring talent—especially people with engineering and technical expertise—is a major challenge for solution providers. So World Wide Technology wins applause this week for launching its own training program aimed at creating talented technical consultants who don’t necessarily have IT backgrounds—including former military personnel, sous-chefs and third-grade teachers.
The idea is that with IT evolving so rapidly, hiring people with specific, highly in-demand engineering skills isn’t the only—or even the best—approach. WWT’s Associate Consulting Systems Engineer Development Program takes people who may not have IT experience—but have a passion to learn—and trains them to be technical consulting professionals who help drive sales.
The Associate Consulting Systems Engineer Development Program is an immersive 12-month training program that teaches participants the technology and business fundamentals needed to be a successful technical consultant in pre-sales engineering roles. In addition to training people with no IT or sales experience, the program trains recent college graduates with computing engineering degrees but lack professional experience.
Aside from helping WWT fill vacant jobs, the program has brought into the company people with a broad range of backgrounds who provide expertise in a variety of vertical industries. It has also helped the global solution provider boost diversity, reduce employee churn and even generate out-of-the-box ideas and solutions.
PTC To Boost App Life-Cycle Management With Acquisition
PTC struck a deal this week to buy Intland Software in a move that expands PTC’s application life-cycle management product portfolio and is expected to grow its footprint in the application life-cycle management space. The acquisition has a $280 million price tag.
PTC is best known for its computer-aided design and product life-cycle management software and services, including its Arena and Windchill tools, and its ThingWorx industrial IoT software.
But the company has been expanding into application life-cycle management—part of the company’s broader Digital Thread portfolio strategy—and the acquisition of Intland Software and its Codebeamer product line will accelerate that effort.
NWN Carousel Launches Consumption-Based Hybrid Work Solutions
It’s clear that work-from-home—at least in hybrid form—is here to stay. Recognizing that as a business opportunity, solution provider NWN Carousel this week debuted two new consumption-based “kits” for businesses with employees who work from home at least part time.
The two new bundled solutions for hybrid work, At-Home Essentials and Office Collaboration Room-as-a-Service, are NWN Carousel’s latest moves to step up its hybrid work game. In January NWN Carousel introduced its Hybrid Work Suite.
The two new solutions combine best-of-breed software from multiple vendors, including Cisco Systems and Fortinet, wrapped in managed services. NWN Carousel will be selling the packaged solutions to its customers and through its own channel of partners.