5 Companies That Came To Win This Week

For the week ending Oct. 25, CRN takes a look at the companies that brought their 'A' game to the channel.

The Week Ending Oct. 25

Topping this week's roundup of companies that came to win is big data software developer Databricks for its very impressive $400 million round of funding.

Also making the "Came to Win" list is security vendor Trend Micro for a competitive acquisition in the cloud security arena, Intermedia for debuting its new Contact Center-as-a-Service lineup, HPE for readying the next generation of its GreenLake service, and Google Cloud for a savvy hire of an executive from a cloud competitor.

Not everyone in the IT industry was making smart moves this week, of course. For a rundown of companies that were unfortunate, unsuccessful or just didn't make good decisions, check out this week's Five Companies That Had A Rough Week roundup.

Databricks Raises $400 Million, Hires Veteran CFO

Big Data startup Databricks scored big in venture financing this week, raising an impressive $400 million in a Series F round of funding led by Andreessen Horowitz’s Late Stage Venture Fund.

Fast-growing Databricks, founded by the developers of the Apache Spark analytics engine for big data, develops the Databricks Unified Analytics Platform that combines data science and data engineering capabilities for managing data analytics processes.

Databricks now has an annual revenue run rate of $200 million and now has a market capitalization of $6.2 billion.

The company also wins kudos for hiring former Splunk CFO Dave Conte to be the company’s new chief financial officer. Conte was Splunk’s CFO for eight years, helping the company grow from $100 million to $2 billion in annual revenue and taking the company public in 2012.

Trend Micro Takes On Palo Alto Networks With Cloud Conformity Buy

Trend Micro took a major step to maintain its leadership position in cloud security this week – particularly against rival Palo Alto Networks – with its $70 million acquisition of cybersecurity startup Cloud Conformity.

Trend Micro said its purchase of Cloud Conformity and that company’s cloud security posture management technology will help Trend Micro address misconfigurations and unprotected user accounts in the public cloud space.

Cloud Conformity will become part of Trend Micro’s hybrid cloud security practice, which accounts for about 25 percent of the company’s $1 billion annual sales.

Last year Palo Alto Networks acquired RedLock, a Cloud Conformity competitor, for $173 million.

Intermedia Launches ‘Holy Grail’ Combined UCaaS, CCaaS System

Intermedia this week launched three new cloud-based contact center solutions that for the first time provides managed service providers with an integrated Unified Communications-as-a-Service (UCaaS) and Contact Center-a-as-Service (CCaaS) system.

Intermedia acquired cloud contact center provider Telax in August and has been busy developing a Contact Center-as-a-Service portfolio to complement its UCaaS products.

Intermedia now offers partners and customers its Intermedia Unite platform, which includes UCaaS and collaboration, integrated with three new CCaaS offerings: Intermedia Contact Center Express for small businesses that need a voice-only contact center solution; Contact Center Pro, an entry-level, complete contact center service; and Intermedia Contact Center Elite for multi-site enterprises.

Intermedia had planned to launch the contact center portfolio closer to the end of the year, company executives said, but that timetable was accelerated because of partner demand following the Telax acquisition.

HPE Readies Next-Generation GreenLake

Hewlett Packard Enterprise is doubling down on its GreenLake consumption-based, pay-per-use service offering. The company is readying a breakthrough hybrid Cloud-as-a-Service platform that’s the next generation of its GreenLake offering.

HPE is expected to deliver the new GreenLake offering in the next few weeks, according to CEO Antonio Neri, who this week said it will provide a unified, simplified service experience across public, private and edge workloads. The new service will include a set of integrated tools that provides visibility into costs, compliance and governance.

The new hybrid Cloud-as-a-Service will enable HPE partners and customers to act as a “broker” of IT services that provide better visibility, access and control for applications and data across all cloud and edge computing systems.

HPE also wins applause this week for winning a major HPE GreenLake VMware Cloud Foundation deal with Porsche’s in-house IT service provider, Porsche Informatik, that’s aimed at building a next-generation digital foundation for the car manufacturer.

Google Poaches ‘Total Visionary’ From Microsoft To Run G Suite

Google scored a coup in the personnel department this week when it hired a former Microsoft executive and highly respected software visionary for a newly created position running the company’s G Suite office productivity business.

Javier Soltero, who previously led the Cortana division at cloud rival Microsoft, is Google’s new vice president of G Suite, reporting directly to Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian.

Soltero came to Microsoft in 2014 when it acquired his previous company, Acompli, and its revolutionary application that became the core of Microsoft Outlook Mobile.