5 Companies That Came To Win This Week

For the week ending June 28, CRN takes a look at the companies that brought their 'A' game to the channel.

The Week Ending June 28

Topping this week's roundup of companies that came to win is Capgemini for its $4.1 billion mega-deal to acquire Altran in a bid to expand its offerings in digital transformation services.

Also making the list were Insight Enterprises for its own blockbuster deal to buy solution provider PCM, Intel for its leading role in developing industry standards for IoT device on-boarding, next-gen data center tech developer Fungible for raising a whopping $200 million in funding, and Druva for launching a new channel program that helps partners develop needed business models around Software-as-a-Service products.

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.

Capgemini To Acquire Altran In Massive $4.1 Billion Engineering, R&D Play

IT consulting and services giant Capgemini struck a deal this week to acquire Altran, a leading provider of engineering and R&D services, in a huge deal worth 3.6 billion euros, or $4.1 billion. The deal is expected to close by the end of the year.

With the acquisition Capgemini, No. 7 on the 2019 CRN Solution Provider 500, is aiming to become a leader in providing digital transformation services, as well as step up its game in cloud computing, edge computing, Internet of Things, artificial intelligence and 5G wireless capabilities.

Altran traditionally has been focused on operations technology, a complement to Capgemini's focus on information technology.

Insight To Acquire PCM To Create A New $9 Billion Solution Provider Powerhouse

Sticking with the topic of blockbuster acquisitions, systems integrator Insight Enterprises will acquire channel giant PCM in a $581 million deal that will further Insight's moves to transform itself from a VAR to an IT services and global solutions provider powerhouse.

The acquisition brings to Insight an additional 40 locations and 4,000 employees—including more than 2,700 client-facing employees in sales, technical and service delivery roles.

Insight is No. 14 on the 2019 CRN Solution Provider 500.

Intel Helps Lead Effort To Create IoT Standard For Device On-Boarding

Intel wins kudos this week for working with rival Arm and other major IT vendors to help create a new industry standard to address a major Internet of Things issue: making sure that devices are properly configured and connected to the cloud.

Intel announced this week that it is a founding member of the new IoT Technical Working Group within the FIDO Alliance, an industry consortium founded by PayPal, Lenovo and others in 2012 to develop standards for password-less authentication.

The goal of the IoT Technical Working Group, which also includes representatives from Microsoft, Google and Amazon, is to create a standard specification for large-scale IoT on-boarding, the process of configuring and connecting devices to IoT cloud management services at the time of installation.

Intel is contributing the technical specifications of the Secure Device Onboard technology the chipmaker debuted in 2017 for device manufacturers to automate the provisioning of IoT devices to cloud platforms.

Next-Gen Data Center Vendor Fungible Raises $200 Million In VC Funding

Fungible said this week that it had raised an impressive $200 million in Series C funding , money the startup will use to accelerate development of its next-generation data center infrastructure technology and to ramp up its sales and marketing efforts.

Fungible is developing data processing unit (DPU) technology, a new generation of processors designed to execute data-centric workloads and which are expected to be a major component of next-generation data centers built on composable disaggregated infrastructure.

Druva Pushes Partners To Embrace Cloud As Business Focus With New Channel Program

Cloud-focused data protection and management vendor Druva wins applause for launching a new channel program this week that aims to help solution providers modernize their business to focus on cloud computing and digital transformation.

The new Compass channel program offers tools and guidance that solution providers can use to build predictable business models around monthly recurring revenue, a critical element when transitioning to Software-as-a-Service data protection and data management offerings.

The Compass program also provides a self-service accreditation program for business account development and turnkey marketing campaigns for partners.