5 Companies That Came To Win This Week

For the week ending Sept. 23, CRN takes a look at the companies that brought their ‘A’ game to the channel.

The Week Ending Sept. 23

Topping this week’s Came to Win list is distributor Ingram Micro for its announcement this week that it has plans for an IPO in the works.

Also making this week’s list is security tech developer CrowdStrike, both for a strategic acquisition in the threat intelligence space and for launching a new channel partner program.

Security tech company Devo made the list, also for making a strategic acquisition, while Nvidia said its H100 next-generation GPUs are now in full production. And strategic services provider Slalom Consulting makes the list for making a key hire for the executive suite.

Ingram Micro Discloses Plans To Go Public Again

Distributor Ingram Micro is planning an IPO (initial public offering), filing a confidential draft registration statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission this week and releasing a press statement signaling its plans.

The company said details about an IPO, including the number of shares to be offered and expected price range, have not yet been determined. The company said it expects the IPO to happen after the SEC completes a review process and remains “subject to market and other conditions.”

Ingram Micro was a public company until 2016 when it was acquired by Chinese conglomerate HNA Group. HNA sold the distributor to private equity firm Platinum Equity for $7.2 billion in July 2021.

Ingram Micro was the IT industry’s largest distributor for many years but was knocked to the No. 2 position last year when Tech Data and Synnex merged. In December 2021 Ingram Micro sold a large portion of its Commerce & Lifecycle Services business to France-based CMA CGM in a $3 billion deal.

CrowdStrike Moves To Buy Reposify, Launches New Partner Program

Cybersecurity tech developer CrowdStrike makes this week’s Came to Win list on two counts, making a move to boost its threat intelligence offerings by acquiring Reposify and launching a new channel program with a new Elite partner tier.

CrowdStrike, holding its Fal.Con 2022 conference this week, said it has a deal to buy Reposify, a Tel Aviv, Israel-based developer of an external attack surface management platform used to help businesses and organizations identify assets that are vulnerable to attack.

The acquisition, expected to close by Oct. 31, is CrowdStrike’s second acquisition of a cybersecurity startup in less than a year.

CrowdStrike this week also launched a new partner program, the CrowdStrike Powered Service Provider Program, which the company described as more comprehensive and inclusive than earlier programs.

The CPSP program includes a new “Elite” partner category with top-tier incentives. CrowdStrike is looking to broaden sales of its security platform through Elite partners as well as through smaller MSPs, MSSPs and other channel players.

Devo Snags LogicHub In Second Cybersecurity Buy In Five Months

Staying with the topic of strategic acquisitions, Devo Technology took a big step this week toward its goal of creating an autonomous security operations center with the acquisition of LogicHub, a developer of security orchestration, automation and response (SOAR) technology.

LogicHub is Devo’s second acquisition in five months: The company acquired Kognos, a developer of autonomous threat hunting technology, in April.

Devo, a provider of cloud-native logging and security analytics technology, has raised $350 million in funding in the past year and a half billion dollars overall since its 2011 founding. That has provided the Cambridge, Mass.-based company with a huge war chest for acquisitions to help the company expand its technology portfolio.

With the LogicHub acquisition, Devo has a complete stack of SaaS capabilities needed to create a comprehensive, autonomous security operations center offering.

Nvidia H100 GPUs In Full Production, Shipping In October

Chipmaker Nvidia, which held its GTC (GPU Technology Conference) this week, said its much-anticipated H100 Tensor Core GPUs are now in full production and will start shipping next month.

Customers now have access to the chip technology through Nvidia’s Launchpad “try before you buy” service.

The H100 offers eight GPUs and delivers up to 4.5 times the performance of earlier generations of Nvidia GPUs, according to the company. It is also 3.5 times more energy efficient and provides more than three times the TCO for customers, according to Nvidia.

Slalom Taps Former Twilio CIO As Its First CTO

Solution provider and strategic services company Slalom Consulting made a savvy move in the personnel realm this week, hiring former Twilio executive Michelle Grover as the company’s first chief technology officer.

As CTO Grover will oversee the Seattle-based company’s technology organization including initiatives around IT infrastructure, product engineering and architecture. She will be responsible for developing IT strategy and expanding IT expertise to support Slalom’s business and expansion goals.

Grover served as Twilio’s CIO from July 2020 to December 2021. Prior to that she held top IT management posts at TripIt, SAP Concur and First Command Financial Services.

Seattle-based Slalom is No. 27 on the CRN Solution Provider 500.