5 Companies That Came To Win This Week

For the week ending May 14 CRN takes a look at the companies that brought their ‘A’ game to the channel.

The Week Ending May 14

Topping this week’s Came to Win list is Solution Provider NWN, which is moving up the ranks of leading solution providers with its acquisition of Carousel Industries.

Also making the list this week are Apple device management software maker Jamf for its deal to buy mobile security tech developer Wandera, AWS and Google Cloud for a pair of key management hires, Cisco Systems for a trio of strategic acquisitions, and Intel for launching its latest 11th-Gen Core and Xeon vPro processors.

NWN Acquires Carousel Industries To Form $1B Cloud Communications Powerhouse

Solution provider NWN made a bold acquisition move this week when it acquired Carousel Industries to create a $1 billion channel heavyweight in the cloud communications and IT infrastructure services arena.

The two companies, both Cisco Systems Gold-level partners, will combine their strengths to tackle an estimated $70 billion market in North America for solutions and services that include unified communications, collaboration, networking and security.

The newly combined companies, now called NWN Carousel, will have a $1 billion annual sales run rate for 2021 with more than 1,400 employees and more than 6,000 customers, according to NWN CEO Jim Sullivan, who will be CEO of NWN Carousel.

Exeter, R.I.-based Carousel was No. 59 on the 2020 CRN Solution Provider 100 while Waltham, Mass.-based NWN ranked No. 80.

Apple Enterprise Specialist Jamf To Acquire Security Firm Wandera For $400M

Apple device management software maker Jamf struck a deal this week to buy cloud and mobile security firm Wandera in a move that will enhance Jamf’s security solutions for enterprise customers.

The deal’s $400 million price tag makes it Jamf’s largest acquisition to date.

Jamf focuses on enabling Apple device usage within businesses with the company’s flagship Jamf Pro enterprise mobility management system for managing and securing Macs, iPhones and iPads.

The acquisition will add Wandera’s Zero Trust Network Access and mobile threat defense capabilities to Jamf’s platform, which already handles deployment, application lifecycle management, policies, filtering and security capabilities across Apple devices.

Jamf, which went public last year, has reported strong sales growth – in part through increased sales efforts with channel partners.

AWS, Google Cloud Make Key Management Hires

Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud win kudos for appointing a pair of high-visibility industry veterans to their management ranks.

AWS introduced Rachel Mushahwar (pictured) at the AWS Summit Online Americas as the Americas partner sales leader for the cloud provider’s commercial sales team. Mushahwar, who officially started in the job in February, is essentially the channel and partner chief for the U.S., Canada and Latin America.

Mushahwar joined AWS from Intel where she worked for six years, most recently as vice president and general manager of U.S. sales enterprise, government and next-wave cloud providers.

Google Cloud, meanwhile, has reportedly hired Citrix channel chief Bronwyn Hastings for an as-yet undisclosed role. Hastings has been senior vice president of worldwide channel sales and ecosystem at Citrix since November 2019. Prior to that she held channel management jobs at SAP and Oracle.

Cisco Boosts Security, Optical Networking Tech, WebEx Portfolios With Acquisitions

Cisco Systems struck a series of strategic acquisition deals this week that will add to the company’s technology lineup in next-generation communications, vulnerability management and collaboration.

Earlier in the week, Cisco disclosed plans to buy Sedona Systems, developer of the NetFusion platform for optimizing, simplifying and automating optical network control. The acquisition will further Cisco’s efforts to fulfill its “Internet of the Future” vision, which included the $4.5 billion acquisition of Acacia Communications in March.

Later in the week, Cisco announced an agreement to buy Kenna Security and its technology that helps security teams improve cybersecurity readiness and automate security decision making by more effectively prioritizing vulnerabilities based on threat intelligence and business impact. The deal is Cisco’s first significant security-related acquisition since it bought Duo Security for $2.35 billion in October 2018.

And completing a triple play, Cisco is acquiring Socio Labs, an events technology startup, that Cisco will use to extend its WebEx’s events capabilities around live streaming, sponsorship, participant networking and advanced analytics, and continuous attendee engagement before, during and after events.

Intel Launches 11th-Gen Core, Xeon vPro CPUs For Mobile Workstations

Maintaining its recent steady stream of advanced technology launches, Intel unleashed a new wave of 11th-generation Core processors this week targeted for mobile workstations used for heavy-duty content creation and business applications

The new Core H-Series lineup, code-named Tiger Lake H, includes five Core and Xeon CPUs that come with Intel’s vPro platform capabilities for enterprise management, security and reliability. They expand on the first batch of 11th-generation vPro processors for ultra-thin laptops that debuted in January.

Intel says the new processors can best the Ryzen 5000 H-Series CPUs from rival AMD across multiple games and video creation, photo processing and Microsoft Office workloads.