Good Week/Bad Week
Who has had a great week and who has had a stinker?
Good week
Shortlists
Celebrations are afoot for the 102 companies that made it onto the coveted CRN Channel Awards 2011 shortlist. Twitter has been awash with messages of congratulations and mutual back slapping. And so it should. The successful companies survived a rigorous and tough judging process to get through to the second stage of the awards process, and now face yet another judging panel before the winners are finally revealed on 17 November at the Battersea events arena. Best of British to you all!
CMS Peripherals
The distributor hit the acquisition trail for the first time last week by snapping up loss-making rival CCI Distribution, transforming itself into a £145m operation. The deal is part of the distie’s three-year plan to become a £250m turnover company, which will also see it make a second acquisition in 2012, the firm’s managing director Frank Salmon told CRN. “This deal will put us way ahead of any other storage or peripherals distributor in the UK, including Hammer and Northamber,” he sniped.
Dr Mike Lynch
OK, slightly more than a week, but still a remarkable week for the co-founder of software firm Autonomy, which was acquired last month by HP for around $10bn. The sale will net him a personal gain of $500m – more than enough to buy a Caribbean island and a luxury yacht and everything the heart desires, or perhaps (if he REALLY wants to) start up another software company and repeat the process in a few years. We know what we would do. Factor 15 anyone?
Bad week
Leo Apotheker
Possibly a bad month for HP’s chief executive, who has been lambasted from all sides about his announcement on the IT giant’s direction. There does not seem to be a lot of love in the room for him at the moment. But while the vendor has not actually said what it is doing with its PSG division, the news that it was canning production of the TouchPad was met with disappointment in channel/retail/analyst circles, and whoops of glee from buyers when the price was slashed.
Apple
Apple’s ballooning share price took a temporary knock as it announced the resignation of iconic founder Steve Jobs as CEO. Analysts quickly rallied around the world’s most valuable tech firm, arguing there is more to the Mac maker than its bearded doyen. “Continuing as chairman, Jobs will continue to leave his mark on both the company and products even as he transfers the reins to Cook,” said Gartner research director Michael Gartenberg.
Computacenter
All eyes turned to Computacenter last week as the industry bellwether unveiled its interim results. Although its group profits rose by a quarter, UK product sales slumped by 23 per cent, underlining just how frosty conditions remain in the traditional resell market.