Five Companies That Came To Win This Week

Dell Tries To Capitalize On HP's Uncertain PC Future

Dell has aggressively been going after HP customers and channel partners in the wake of HP's announcement last month that it's considering a sale or spin-off of its PC business.

This week, Greg Davis, Dell 's channel chief, sent an email to Dell channel partners assuring that that Dell will maintain its commitment to them.

"The changing landscape in the PC market may have you asking yourself a number of questions. Dell remains a stable partner committed to the PC business. We are here to help," Davis wrote in the email.

Microsoft Adds Desktop Virtualization In Windows 8

Microsoft this week revealed a bit of a surprise by announcing that Windows 8 will support virtualization on the desktop, allowing users to run multiple operating systems -- including non-Microsoft OSes such as Linux -- simultaneously.

Virtualization has been built into the Windows client with Microsoft's Virtual PC platform, which is integrated with Windows 7. On the server, it's Hyper-V, and now Microsoft is standardizing with Hyper-V on the desktop as well. This will help enterprise deployments by allowing for consistent file formatting and a common management interface, according to solution providers.

Hitachi Data Systems Acquires NAS Vendor BlueArc

Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) this week acquired BlueArc, a NAS vendor that's been a partner for the past five years. HDS has been selling BlueArc's high-performance NAS technology as a file-based data gateway to its block-based SAN arrays, and the company apparently decided to just go ahead and buy its OEM partner.

Greg Knieriemen, vice president of marketing at Chi, a Cleveland, Ohio-based solution provider and partner to both vendors, told CRN this week that the acquisition was not unexpected."What surprised me was how long it took," Knieriemen said. "This is a bold move for Hitachi. They don't make a lot of acquisitions."

Integra Telecom Names Channel Chief As Part Of Cloud Services Push

Integra Telecom this week tapped industry veteran Ken Worcester as its new vice president of indirect sales as part of a larger effort to sell high-bandwidth and cloud-based services through the channel.

Worcester will oversee Integra’s Premier Partner program, and his hiring marks the Ore.-based CLEC [competitive local exchange carrier] first move to formalize executive leadership of its Premier Partner Program, which was previously under regional control.

Last year, Integra Telecom made CRN’s list of the 75 Coolest Telecom Providers -- ’mavericks’ who were well-positioned to take advantage of the booming cloud market. Now, Worcester said he expects that with Integra’s suite of cloud products and services to help grow new acquisition revenue through the channel could grow to 35 percent -- compared to 25 percent currently -- by year's end.

Amazon Web Services Builds Bridge To Android, iOS Developers

Amazon Web Services this week launched a pair of cloud software development kits (SDKs) for Google Android and Apple iOS that the company said will make it easier for developers to build mobile applications and services that leverage AWS cloud services.

Amazon says the SDKs will allow developers to make API requests directly from their mobile applications to Amazon's lineup of cloud computing services. "AWS mobile SDKs make it easier for software developers to call an AWS web service API directly from a mobile application," Amazon said in a statement.