5 Companies That Came To Win This Week

The Week Ending Oct. 9

A number of the largest IT companies in the world came to win this week, leading with Dell, which may purchase EMC in a blockbuster deal that would include controlling interest in VMware. The purchase would disrupt the industry and put serious pressure on competitors Cisco and Hewlett-Packard.

Cisco and AWS each hosted conferences where they launched a slew of products, services and solutions all based around the Internet of Things. One of the biggest solution providers in the world, CSC, revealed plans to acquire yet another company this year -- Australia's largest IT services company, UXC, for $300 million.

Solution provider Denali Advanced Integration also did some remarkable things by raising $60,000 for Seattle Children's Hospital and for its Research Institute through its hosting of the Denali Dash community 5K road race last weekend.

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 5 Companies That Had A Rough Week roundup.

Dell Looking At Blockbuster EMC Purchase, Will Include VMware

Dell appears to be close to making a game-changing deal with EMC that would pose a major disruption in the market for the likes of Cisco and HP. Privately held Round Rock, Texas-based Dell reportedly is trying to raise $40 billion to finance the purchase.

Partners said the bid is a sign of how determined Dell founder and CEO Michael Dell is about transforming the company into an enterprise computing leader. Dell has spent $14 billion over the past decade on at least 25 enterprise-focused companies, including the nearly $1 billion acquisition of storage virtualization high-flyer Compellent in 2010. The potential buy also includes a controlling interest in VMware for Dell.

Cisco partners said a Dell-EMC merger would likely officially end the networking giant's six-year relationship with VCE.

Cisco Dead Set On IoT, Launches Solutions For Partners

Cisco revealed several new solutions based on the Internet of Things along with some strategic partnerships with large operational technology players. Highlights include a new ISA-3000 security appliance purpose-built for the industrial space as well as Cisco's IoT System Security product portfolio created to deliver secure connectivity visibility and control across all verticals, with which channel partners can tie in professional services.

The rollout came at Cisco's Global Editors Conference at its San Jose, Calif.-based headquarters this week.

"[IoT] is bigger than the first wave of the Internet. It has to be. You cannot connect 50 billion things that have never been connected before and not achieve tremendous new value that wasn't created before," CEO Chuck Robbins (pictured) said during the conference. "We're absolutely committed to making this journey together with our partners."

CSC Buys Australian Largest IT Services Company

CSC continued its acquisition tear in 2015 with plans to buy Australia's largest IT services company, UXC, for $300 million. UXC is a $480 million IT application, infrastructure and consulting firm that is in the top 1 percent of Microsoft Dynamics global resellers, with strong relationships with Oracle and SAP in Australia and New Zealand.

UXC marks the third acquisition revealed from the Falls Church, Va.-based company, ranked No. 5 on the CRN Solution Provider 500, since August. The acquisitions are coming just ahead of CSC's $8.1 billion commercial business separation next month from its $4.1 billion U.S. public sector business.

AWS Launches New Features, Services And IoT Platform

Amazon Web Services launched an array of new services and features during its AWS re:Invent event in Las Vegas this week. The cloud behemoth revealed its new AWS IoT platform geared toward helping partners simplify the work of connecting, managing and securing devices sending data to Amazon's cloud.

Other important new offerings included AWS Schema, a free tool for migrating between database engines; Amazon Inspector, a service that performs automated assessments that identify security or compliance concerns when deploying applications; Amazon Kinesis Firehose, which allows users to load streaming data into an AWS data store with a single API call; and QuickSight, which allows companies to create visualizations and derive analytic insights without doing any complex data modeling.

Denali Advanced Integration Raises $60,000 For Children's Hospital

One of the most highly respected technology solution providers in the country, Denali Advanced Integration, raised $60,000 for Seattle Children's Hospital and for its Research Institute, which is seeking cures for pediatric diseases.

The Redmond, Wash.-based solution provider hosts the Denali Dash community 5K road race and 1K Children Fun Run for the hospital as part of an annual fund-raiser and celebration.

"When we raise money it is not just the amount of money we raise for the organizations we support. It is also about raising awareness," said Denali CEO Majdi Daher, during the celebration. "It is very important for you to know about the great organizations that give us the extra days that are so precious in our lives."