5 Companies That Came To Win This Week

The Week Ending July 6

Topping this week's roundup of companies that came to win is Microsoft, which is carrying through on a number of initiatives announced last year to increase its business through its channel partners, especially with its cloud computing services.

Also making the list this week are Plantronics for completing its $2 billion acquisition of Polycom, D&H Distributing for its plans to expand its security and device-as-a-service offerings for partners, Black Box for scoring a major data center deal with a social media giant, and cybersecurity startup Safe-T for filing for its initial public offering.

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.

Microsoft Making Good On Its Channel Initiatives

One year after Microsoft unveiled a wide array of changes aimed at boosting its business with its thousands of channel partners, Microsoft is reporting solid progress in such areas as improving cooperation between its salesforce and partners, and creating partner opportunities around Azure cloud, Office 365 and Windows 10.

In interviews with CRN, Microsoft executives – including channel chief Gavriella Schuster (pictured) – detailed the progress of its channel efforts.

A key improvement is that Microsoft's salespeople are bringing partners in at the beginning of the sales process, rather than the proof-of-concept stage, which is leading to greater consumption of Microsoft's cloud services.

Microsoft has also provided incentives to its salespeople to promote Cloud Solution Provider partners instead of traditional Enterprise Agreement licenses, reducing CSP-EA conflict for Office 365 and Azure sales. Microsoft has also put more priority on selling partner services and has simplified partner incentive programs.

Plantronics Completes Its $2 Billion Acquisition Of Polycom Creating A UCC Powerhouse

Plantronics now offers one of the broadest product portfolios in the Unified Communications and Collaboration industry after the company this week completed its $2 billion acquisition of UCC provider Polycom.

With the acquisition Plantronics says it can bring voice, video, content and cloud systems, both on-premise and through the cloud, to its customers.

Plantronics wins applause for its decision to continue to operate the two companies' channel programs separately for the time being, choosing to maintain what already works well rather than seek immediate cost savings through consolidation.

D&H Distributing To Expand Its Cybersecurity, Device-As-A-Service Lineups

D&H Distributing wins kudos for its ambitious plans to expand its technology solution and training offerings for partners, evidence that the distributor isn't sitting on its laurels as it celebrates its 100-year anniversary.

D&H, which recently held its D&H 2018 Mid-Atlantic Summer Technology Conference, told CRN that it's working with partners to expand the range of security, network and vulnerability assessment services that resellers can provide to their SMB customers.

The distributor is likewise adding to its device-as-a-service offerings that reseller partners can offer their customers. D&H is also helping partners with staff augmentation, including designing, developing and configuring solutions whose complexity may be beyond a partner's capabilities.

Black Box Inks Deal With 'Social Media Giant'

Black Box has inked a $10 million deal with a yet-to-be-identified "social media giant" to build out a massive data center, Black Box said this week. The project is potentially worth $300 million or more for the Lawrence, Pa.-based solution provider.

Black Box will build out a 1-million-square-foot space, installing the racks and stacks of network equipment, installation of the infrastructure hardware, and all of the structured cabling, which includes more than 100 miles of fiber-optic cabling, according to a Black Box statement.

The company also will deploy a dedicated project team, ramping up to 70-plus team members for the first project and could see that number grow to over 500 team members as the program reaches its potential, according to the statement.

"This strategic partnership has the potential to be one of the largest in Black Box history," Joel Trammell, Black Box president and CEO, said in a statement. "The ability to deploy sophisticated data center solutions leverages our intelligent digital edge strategy. Our global scale, repeatable and predictable governance framework, deep technical expertise, and core values alignment differentiated us from our competition and were instrumental in our selection."

The timing of the win couldn’t be better, given that Black Box warned in a regulatory filing this week that it might not have enough cash to make it into the next year without filing for bankruptcy.

Cybersecurity Startup Safe-T Files For IPO

Safe-T Group, a provider of software-defined perimeter and application access security technology, this week filed to raise up to $10 million in an initial public offering.

As part of the F-1 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Safe-T disclosed that channel partners account for 35 percent of the company's revenue. The company also said that it expects its channel partners "will represent a substantial portion of our revenues for the foreseeable future."