5 Companies That Came To Win This Week

For the week ending Nov. 5 CRN takes a look at the companies that brought their ‘A’ game to the channel.

The Week Ending Nov. 5

Topping this week’s Came to Win list are Dell Technologies and VMware after successfully completing the spin-off of VMware as an independent company.

Also making the list this week are IBM and Kyndryl for their own successful spin-off move, CrowdStrike for a strategic acquisition in data protection, Nutanix for a key executive hire and data warehouse service provider Yellowbrick Data for an impressive funding round.

Dell Technologies Completes VMware Spin-Off

Dell Technologies and virtualization tech giant VMware this week completed the complex process of spinning off Dell’s 81 percent stake in VMware, creating an independent software company with a market value of approximately $64 billion.

Dell plans to use its pro rata amount of VMware’s $11.5 billion special cash dividend (about $9.3 billion) to repay a portion of its huge debt load stemming from its $67 billion acquisition of EMC and VMware in 2016. That’s expected to help Dell boost its credit rating and attract new investors.

In fact, as soon as the transaction was complete three major credit ratings agencies: S&P Ratings, Fitch Ratings and Moody’s, all upgraded Dell’s credit rating from “high yield” to “investment grade.”

For VMware, it is now a standalone company for the first time since 2004 and CEO Raghu Raghuram said VMware now has flexibility to partner with a wider range of cloud and on-premises IT infrastructure vendors and to make strategic acquisitions.

IBM Completes Kyndryl Spin-Off

In the second of a spin-off double-header this week Kyndryl, previously IBM’s managed infrastructure services business, launched as an independent company on Thursday.

With nearly 90,000 employees, 4,400 customers and $19 billion in annual revenue, Kyndryl is taking aim at the increasingly competitive digital transformation market. Kyndryl has six managed service practice areas: cloud; digital workplace; security and resiliency; network and edge; core enterprise and zCloud; and applications, data and AI.

Kyndryl executives touted the company’s advantages including a deep portfolio of intellectual property of more than 3,000 patents (with another 1,000 in the pipeline). Kyndryl CTO Antoine Shagoury told CRN that the company has newfound freedom to form partnerships with vendors beyond IBM.

“We’re taking what we already are — which is a No. 1 player in the IT infrastructure services space … becoming an independent company, and that gives us a new freedom to no longer be an IBM captive,” CFO David Wyshner told CRN.

Kyndryl faces challenges, including reversing three consecutive years of revenue declines and net losses of $2.01 billion last year and $943 million in 2019. The company’s goal is positive revenue growth in 2025.

CrowdStrike To Buy Data Protection Startup SecureCircle

Fast-rising security tech developer CrowdStrike moved to extend its capabilities into data loss prevention with a deal this week to acquire data protection startup SecureCircle.

With the acquisition CrowdStrike will extend its zero trust endpoint security device and identity capabilities to include data, allowing customers to enforce zero trust at the device level, the identity level and the data level. SecureCircle’s technology enforces encryption on data in transit, at rest and in use.

CrowdStrike CTO Michael Sentonas said the combination of CrowdStrike and SecureCircle will provide customers with visibility and control over how data is downloaded, used and shared across an organization.

Nutanix Hires Pure Storage, VMware Veteran As New CRO

Nutanix made a key addition to its executive ranks this week, hiring Dominick Delfino, the chief revenue officer at Pure Storage, to serve as CRO at the hyperconverged infrastructure vendor.

In addition to working at Pure for about a year, Delfino worked at VMware between 2014 and 2020, serving in a number of posts including senior vice president and general manager of the Americas.

VMware is Nutanix’s chief competitive rival in the fast-growing hyperconverged infrastructure software market and in hybrid cloud software.

Nutanix has a number of former VMware executives within its management ranks including Rajiv Ramaswami, who became Nutanix CEO in late 2020 following a four-year stint as VMware’s global chief operating officer of products and services.

Yellowbrick Data Raises $75M In New Funding Round

Yellowbrick Data, which is competing against industry giants such as Snowflake and Google in the cloud data warehouse arena, raised $75 million in a Series C1 round of funding this week.

The capital infusion comes as Yellowbrick says it is on track to more than double annual recurring revenue with this year’s bookings and has added a number of large companies in financial services, hedge funds and insurance to its customer base.

Yellowbrick has raised a total of $248 million since its 2014 founding.