For the week ending Aug. 16, CRN takes a look at the companies that brought their ‘A’ game to the channel including Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Dell Technologies, Nutanix, Broadcom, ScanSource and ClearScale.

The Week Ending Aug. 16

Topping this week’s Came to Win list is Hewlett Packard Enterprise for a strategic acquisition that will boost the capabilities of the company’s GreenLake hybrid cloud platform.

Also making this week’s list are Dell Technologies and Nutanix for teaming up to develop new products and a new go-to-market strategy that takes aim at the market for VMware alternatives. Broadcom itself makes the list for launching a new program that enlists distributors to help broaden sales of its security products.

Distributor ScanSource is here for its own acquisition that expands its technology management and wireless connectivity capabilities. And solution provider and AWS partner ClearScale makes the list for launching its innovative VMware-to-AWS migration services.

HPE Readies Next Major Leap With GreenLake With Morpheus Data Acquisition

Hewlett Packard Enterprise is acquiring Morpheus Data, a developer of hybrid cloud management and automation software, in a move to further extend the capabilities of the HPE GreenLake hybrid cloud platform.

Morpheus Data’s software enables customers to orchestrate and automate the full life-cycle management of applications across hybrid environments.

The addition of Morpheus Data will enhance HPE GreenLake by providing multi-vendor, multi-cloud application provisioning, orchestration and automation, and FinOps capabilities for cloud cost optimization. The company’s technology will be integrated within the HPE GreenLake cloud and HPE private cloud portfolios.

“With the acquisition of Morpheus Data, we will take the next major leap to make HPE GreenLake cloud the de facto platform for innovating across hybrid IT,” said Fidelma Russo, HPE executive vice president and general manager, hybrid cloud, and CTO, in a statement.

HPE is seeking to evolve HPE GreenLake into a future-proof platform for managing virtualized, cloud-native and AI workloads. Morpheus Data provides an agnostic cloud management platform designed to unify management of multi-cloud and hybrid IT while empowering DevOps teams with self-service provisioning of bare metal, virtual machine and container-based application services.

Dell And Nutanix Leverage Channel Go-To-Market Effort To Target VMware By Broadcom

Dell Technologies and Nutanix are going on the offensive, teaming up on new storage device products and a new go-to-market strategy that takes aim at the market for VMware alternatives in the wake of Broadcom’s price hikes.

The new version of Dell’s XC Plus hyperconverged infrastructure is for customers who want to use Dell storage for their Nutanix HCI environments, while Dell PowerFlex with Nutanix Cloud Platform gives customers a vSphere alternative in the form of Nutanix Acropolis on Dell PowerFlex, according to the companies.

“Our partners now are going to be able to have a much more comprehensive conversation with their customers on that hypervisor strategy topic,” Drew Schulke, Dell Technologies vice president of Infrastructure Solutions Group, primary storage portfolio, told CRN. “Both in terms of the XC Plus offer if they’re focused on HCI operation model. For customers who are looking for something that might be more able to support virtualized and non-virtualized workloads with PowerFlex, now you have Acropolis as a first-class citizen in that discussion as well.”

Nutanix is not only using Dell’s market-leading storage hardware, Nutanix is leveraging Dell’s storage sales teams to drive revenue and services.

“Dell is going to take end-to-end lead on sales, support, transactions and services. For Dell channel partners this is a great development because now they can deliver the solution from end to end, transacting it through Dell,” said Schulke. “That’s on the XC Plus side.”

And because this is a storage deal, Schulke said, the XC Plus as well as the Dell PowerFlex with Nutanix Cloud Foundations, which will be released later this year, are both eligible for the incentives available through Partner First For Storage. That also means Dell’s internal sales reps will be pushing Nutanix offerings to their customers, prospects, and the channel.

Broadcom’s New Go-To-Market Efforts Move Security Offers Via TD Synnex, Arrow Electronics and Carahsoft

Broadcom, meanwhile, makes this week’s list for stepping up its own go-to-market game in its security business, designating some distributors as “Catalyst” partners and allowing them to create and deliver their own product and deal offerings to the channel.

As Broadcom focuses on a small number of enterprise customers in the hardware business, it needs to tap into the wider market to support its security business, including its Carbon Black and Symantec products, Jason Rolleston, vice president and chief product officer of the enterprise security group at Broadcom, told CRN.

Broadcom’s new Catalyst program is designed to drive its security offerings deeper into the SMB and midmarket spaces.

The company designated distributors TD Synnex, Arrow Electronics and Carahsoft as its partners in the new effort. Catalyst partners can move pricing and marketing and localize offers to be relevant to the market, Rolleston said.

“This is tapping into the distributors to really enlist them as not just distributors for us, but really active partners in the execution of the business,” Rolleston said. “They also have a tremendous amount of flexibility in terms of what they do with the portfolios, how to assemble them, and build different bundles.”

ScanSource Expands Connectivity Prowess With Advantix Acquisition, New ISS Group

Returning to the topic of savvy acquisitions: ScanSource, which distributes specialty technology and modern cloud and communications services, is looking to expand its technology management and wireless connectivity capabilities with this week’s acquisition of Advantix, a managed connectivity experience provider specializing in wireless enablement and expense management.

Along with the acquisition, ScanSource this week unveiled the creation of its new Integrated Solutions and Services Group. The group, in conjunction with its Advantix acquisition, is aimed at providing ScanSource’s hardware-focused solution providers with new ways to wrap additional value around their customers’ hardware purchases, the distributor said.

ScanSource and Advantix are no strangers to each other. The two have partnered for five years to help hardware-focused solution providers add mobility technology to their offerings and take advantage of recurring revenue opportunities they may traditionally not have had access to, ScanSource said.

Tony Sorrentino, president of ScanSource Specialty Technologies, said in a statement that the launch of the ISS Group, along with the Advantix acquisition, let ScanSource’s hardware-focused solution providers add value to their hardware sales and develop hybrid hardware and connectivity solutions.

ClearScale Develops Own VMware-to-AWS Migration Offering

Solution provider ClearScale, an Amazon Web services Premier Tier Services partner, this week debuted its own stack of services that provide what the company calls an “easy button” to help customers migrate VMware VMs and workloads to AWS.

The new AI-powered VMware-to-AWS Accelerator offerings are ClearScale’s answer to client concerns about VMware price increases. The set of services are designed for businesses that want to migrate their VMware environments to AWS infrastructure and modernize on the cloud.

This week ClearScale launched three services as part of the Accelerator suite including VMware Exit Assessment to analyze a client’s VMware environment to identify cost savings; VMware Cloud (VMC) on AWS Exit Assessment, which employs AI to develop a transition strategy; and SA On-Demand—VMware/VMC Exit Strategy, through which Clear-Scale AWS-certified solutions architects design and implement a cloud strategy and cost-benefit analysis for clients – including guidance on license rationalization, DevOps and automation.