5 Companies That Came To Win This Week

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

The Week Ending Feb. 5

Topping this week’s Came to Win list is Dell Technologies, which launched a revamped partner program with the ability for partners to transact VMware licensing deals.

Also making the list is big data startup Databricks for raising $1 billion in an impressive round of funding. Systems integration giant Accenture made the list for making three acquisitions in the space of two days while Intel regained some PC processor market share in Q4 2020, according to a report out this week.

And a high-five to startup vFunction, which exited stealth this week with its technology for transforming legacy software into cloud-native applications.

Dell Gives Partners The Green Light To Sell VMware Licenses Via New Partner Program

Dell Technologies wins applause this week for its bold move to allow the company’s channel partners to transact VMware licensing deals directly through the new 2021 Dell Technologies Partner Program.

Dell launched the revamped partner program this week and one of the program’s major highlights is it provides Dell Titanium and Platinum tier partners with the ability to transact VMware licensing transactions directly through the Dell program with an aligned base rebate.

The new VMware sales option is expected to simplify life for solution providers that work with both Dell and VMware. Channel partners said it will speed up deal proposals by making it easier to configure and price hardware/software systems – and making it easier for customers to transact business with them.

Dell has also created an online solutions configurator tool as part of the new partner program and offers a new Incentive Center that simplifies partner access to rebates, market development funds and Dell’s MyRewards program. The company is also increasing by three-fold the subscription referral fee partners earn for selling the Dell Technologies Cloud Platform.

Databricks Snags $1B In Funding Round That Boosts Market Valuation To $28 Billion

Big data analytics software developer Databricks scored big in venture funding this week, raising $1 billion in a very impressive Series G round of financing that boosts the company’s post-money valuation to $28 billion.

The new financing likely presages a highly anticipated IPO from the San Francisco-based company sometime this year, possibly rivaling Snowflake’s blockbuster IPO in 2020.

The latest funding round comes on top of the $897 million the San Francisco-based company has already raised, including a $400 million Series F round of financing in October 2019 and a $250 million Series E round in February 2019.

Databricks, founded in 2013 by the developers of the popular Spark big data processing engine, has been one of the hottest IT startups in recent years. The company’s product portfolio includes the Databricks Unified Data Service and the Databricks Lakehouse Platform – the latter a system that combines attributes of traditional data warehouse systems and data lakes used to store huge volumes of unorganized data.

Accenture Makes Three Acquisitions In Two Days

Global systems integrator Accenture has been on an acquisition tear in recent years, snapping up small solution providers with unique services capabilities and startups with leading-edge technologies.

This week the company outdid itself when it announced three acquisitions in the space of two days. That makes four in the first five weeks of 2021.

Topping this week’s shopping list was Imaginea, a Mountain View, Calif.-based engineering firm with expertise in cloud-native software and platforms. The company provides services to help clients digitally transform their businesses, innovate using disruptive technologies and capture new opportunities.

The week’s acquisition targets also included Future State, an Oakland-based change management consulting firm with expertise in the life sciences, consumer packaged goods and technology industries. Future State and its 75 employees will become part of Accenture’s Talent & Organization/Human Potential practice. And Accenture bought Businet System, a Tokyo-based solution provider with expertise around Salesforce Commerce Cloud.

Intel Regains PC Market Share Against AMD As CPU Capacity Expands

After ceding market share to AMD in PCs for several quarters, Intel regained some territory in the fourth quarter of 2020 thanks largely to improving CPU production capacity, according to an industry report released this week.

The report from Mercury Research provided some good news for Intel, which had a tough 2020 with production delays and departing executives.

Intel’s share in laptops grew 1.2 points to 81 percent while its desktop share grew 0.8 points to 80.7 percent, according to the Mercury Research report. The result was that Intel grew market share for x86 CPUs overall by 0.7 points to 78.3 percent.

Intel’s market share growth was largely due to the chipmaker’s increased manufacturing capacity for lower-end processors such as Celeron and Pentium, although growing sales of Core i5 and Core i7 processors also contributed to the growth.

vFunction Exits Stealth With Tech For Transforming Legacy Apps For The Cloud

Startup vFunction gained attention this week when the company exited stealth with its technology for transforming monolithic, Java-based applications into cloud-native microservices.

The Palo Alto, Calif.-based company is targeting the widespread challenge of finding an easy, repeatable way of transforming legacy application software into cloud-native applications. That problem is widely seen as inhibiting cloud adoption.

While legacy applications can be shifted to cloud platforms to reduce reliance on internal data centers, that doesn’t provide a way for businesses and organizations to get the full value out of those applications, according to co-founder and CEO Moti Rafalin.

vFunction launched with $12.2 million in seed funding.