5 Companies That Came To Win This Week

The Week Ending Oct. 19

Topping this week's roundup of companies that came to win are Fujifilm’s legal team and their victory for the on-again, off-again deal with Xerox. The star-crossed companies are not quite done with each other, as the latest court case shows.

Also, coming in for a big win this week is Accenture, which notched its latest acquisition, making it at least 10 so far this year for the solutions behemoth. Cybersecurity vendor Palo Alto Networks also made a bold play, selecting a former Google big wig as president.

Not everyone in the IT industry was making smart moves this week, of course. For a rundown of companies that were unfortunate, unsuccessful, or had a pitch land just a bit outside, check out this week's 5 Companies That Had A Rough Week roundup.

Fujifilm Wins Big In Court

A New York Appellate Court tossed an injunction that not only stopped the Fujifilm and Xerox from merging, but also resulted in massive upheaval at Xerox that culminated with the former CEO Jeff Jacobson and five members of the board leaving in May.

Fujifilm’s law firm, corporate powerhouse Sidley Austin LLP, came in after the injunction was granted and on Tuesday prevailed over the side led by Xerox shareholder Darwin Deason. The victory means Fujifilm can once again resume negotiations with Xerox for a potential takeover. However, with Deason and Carl Icahn loyalists now in the corner office and occupying the board at Xerox, it’s not clear how realistic a deal might be. The victory also clears up some of the underlying matters in the federal breach of contract case, which Fujifilm brought against Xerox.

The deal that once seemed destined for the dustbin is not dead yet.

Palo Alto Networks Taps Former Google Exec Amit Singh As President

In a massive cloud play, Palo Alto Networks brought in the executive responsible for growing Google Cloud into a multibillion-dollar business to be its next president.

The Santa Clara, Calif.-based platform security giant Monday said that Amit Singh will start Nov. 1 as president of Palo Alto Networks. Singh will replace Mark Anderson, who has been with the company for six-and-a-half years and has served as president since August 2016.

"I have been continually impressed by Amit's leadership and believe his experience growing cloud businesses and driving revenue at scale will help us strengthen our position as the clear leader in cybersecurity," said Palo Alto Networks CEO Nikesh Arora in a statement.

Singh worked alongside Arora at Google between May 2010 and December 2014. Arora took over as chairman and CEO of Palo Alto Networks in June.

Accenture Beefs Up Financial Services Muscle With TargetST8 Buy

On Wednesday, Accenture announced it acquired TargetST8 Consulting, a financial services firm that specializes in using artificial intelligence and robotic process automation in corporate and commercial lending.

Founded in 2013, TargetST8 focuses exclusively on the financial markets, serving banks and investment firms in the U.S. and Europe, Accenture said. The Chicago-based solution provider, No. 2 on the 2018 CRN Solution Provider 500, said TargetST8 will be used to enhance its commercial and corporate lending capabilities and bolster its credit consulting practice

“TargetST8 consultants are known for their deep expertise, innovative digital solutions and outstanding project delivery—particularly in their implementation of Finastra’s Loan IQ solution,” said Alan McIntyre, who leads Accenture's banking practice globally. “The addition of TargetST8 will enhance our ability to help our commercial and corporate lending clients improve their processes and transform their businesses.”

McAfee Debuts Endpoint Detection And Response, Unveils Other Tools

McAfee has thrown itself head-first into the crowded endpoint detection and response (EDR) space, introducing cloud and unified data protection offerings that increase visibility across the whole ecosystem.

McAfee can differentiate itself from emerging players in the EDR space through integrations with its endpoint protection and security tools, allowing for protection, detection and adoption to be more tightly aligned, said Raja Patel, vice president and general manager of corporate products.

The Santa Clara, Calif.-based platform security vendor, which held its MPower 2018 Cybersecurity Summit in Las Vegas this week, said attackers are evolving and advancing their techniques to keep up with the threat landscape. As a result, Patel said McAfee has built a robust offering to address what happens should a threat get in.

Also at MPower, McAfee disclosed that it has begun working to transform the raw data coming out of its one billion global sensors into world-class analytics capabilities that are actionable for customers as part of a new research project dubbed Apollo. The project will focus on the intersection between what's happening in a user's organization and the latest developments in the global threat landscape, according to Steve Grobman, McAfee's senior vice president and CTO.

Violin Systems To Acquire X-IO Storage Business

On Tuesday, Violin Systems said it has signed an agreement to acquire the storage business of X-IO Technologies. Violin Systems, which was born from flash storage pioneer Violin Memory, plans to use the X-IO technology to expand its market from an enterprise focus to the SMB side of the business.

X-IO at the same time said it has renamed itself as Axellio, taking the brand name of its edge computing and hyper-converged infrastructure technology as its new company name. The deal, for an undisclosed sum, is expected to close within 30 days

Violin Systems is a San Jose, Calif.-based developer of high-performance all-flash storage systems and related operating systems and software. The company earlier this month unveiled the Violin XVS 8, a new storage system featuring low latency and enterprise-class data services. The Violin XVS 8 features the high-performance NVMe over Fibre Channel protocol and allows deduplication and compression to be set on a per-LUN basis.