For the week ending Nov. 8, CRN takes a look at the companies that brought their ‘A’ game to the channel including Ingram Micro, CrowdStrike, Accenture, Cynomi and Nerdio.

The Week Ending Nov. 8

Topping this week’s Came to Win list is distributor Ingram Micro for its latest steps to help solution providers work with the distributor and expand their capabilities in cybersecurity and AI.

Also making the list are cybersecurity company CrowdStrike for a strategic acquisition in the SaaS security space and IT services giant Accenture for its acquisition of an Anaplan consulting services firm.

MSP-focused cybersecurity startup Cynomi makes this week’s list for a key executive hire. And Nerdio is here for expanding the capabilities of its management tools for Microsoft applications.

Ingram Micro Launches Ultra, Helps Partners Up Their Cybersecurity Game

Ingram Micro tops this week’s ‘Came to Win’ list for the distributor’s steps, outlined at the company’s Ingram Micro One conference this week, to help solution providers work with the distributor and expand their capabilities in cybersecurity and AI.

Topping the list of announcements from the One event was the launch of Ingram Micro Ultra, a new platform that will use cutting-edge AI and a tailored rewards system that will transform the distributor’s interactions with its channel partners and offer them a highly personalized experience. Ultra builds on the Xvantage platform Ingram Micro launched two years ago.

Ingram Micro is also providing partners with new tools, expert guidance and a listed of vetted cybersecurity vendors to help them grow their cybersecurity practices. The distributor is likewise providing partners with training, special events and strategic support that helps partners work with Microsoft Copilot.

“The future of business is about transforming relationships, not just transactions,” Ingram Micro CEO Paul Bay said during his keynote at the event before some 2,500 solution providers. He focused on how AI, automation and scalable solutions are driving value for solution providers while also giving them a competitive edge in the market.

Ingram Micro also announced a multiyear Strategic Collaboration Agreement with Amazon Web Services that will help drive business for AWS partners by leveraging the distributor’s resources and expertise.

CrowdStrike To Boost Falcon Platform With Adaptive Shield Buy

CrowdStrike makes this week’s list for its deal to acquire SaaS security startup Adaptive Shield in a move to expand the capabilities of its Falcon platform.

CrowdStrike President Michael Sentonas said in a blog post that the purchase of Israel-based Adaptive Shield is key for the company’s future in SaaS and artificial intelligence security and “an essential piece of our cloud security vision.

“Our acquisition of Adaptive Shield takes us another step forward in giving our customers the best possible protection against modern cyberattacks with the Falcon platform,” he said.

Adaptive Shield provides comprehensive SaaS security posture management (SSPM) capabilities. Its technology offers full visibility into, and governance of, human and non-human identities and their permissions, entitlements, activity levels and public data across more than 150 SaaS applications to strengthen identity security posture.

Accenture Boosts Anaplan Capabilities With Allitix Purchase

Staying on the topic of strategic acquisitions, Accenture this week acquired consulting company Allitix in a move to expand its expertise and services around the Anaplan corporate performance management software.

With the acquisition Accenture will boost its expertise in Anaplan’s financial planning, financial analysis, sales performance management and supply chain management capabilities.

Accenture has been an Anaplan partner for more than eight years and the IT service giant’s Anaplan practice already includes more than 700 Anaplan-certified professionals. Allitix, based in Irvine, Calif., has more than 60 Anaplan functional and technical professionals who will join Accenture Technology in North America.

“Demand for connected enterprise planning is on the rise, given its ability to unlock business value and spur total enterprise reinvention,” David Leckstein, senior managing director and lead of Americas Technology at Accenture, said in a statement. “Allitix’s highly skilled talent, deep domain expertise and agile approach to implementation complements our broader digital capabilities and further expands our ability to deliver integrated enterprise planning transformations for our clients that drive better, faster insights and bottom-line value.”

Cynomi Hires Security Industry Vet As CRO To Drive vCISO Platform Growth

On the personnel front, MSP-focused cybersecurity startup Cynomi makes this week’s list for hiring Ken Marks, a veteran of the cybersecurity channel, as the company’s new chief revenue officer.

In the CRO role, Marks is now leading all go-to-market functions for Cynomi, which operates a partner-only model and does not sell directly to customers. Cynomi’s channel chief, vice president of channel sales Royi Barnea, is now reporting to Marks.

Cynomi develops an automated vCISO platform, tailored toward securing small and mid-sized enterprises, that provides equivalent capabilities to a GRC (governance, risk and compliance) tool while also conducting gap analysis and creating customized policies and developing prioritized remediation plans to ensure that cybersecurity is addressed.

Marks, who was most recently at SentinelOne, told CRN that the move to Cynomi was prompted by the opportunity to help protect smaller organizations while also enabling MSPs to grow their businesses. He described Cynomi’s platform as “purpose-built to help MSPs build a new revenue stream.”

“I see the opportunity now for MSPs and MSSPs to be tremendous — to not only provide vCISO services to their customers, but [Cynomi] also becomes the ‘tip of the spear,’” he said. “They can then open up opportunities to help [customers] with remediation by selling them other services and other products, to help fill any gaps that those customers may have.”

Nerdio Debuts New Microsoft Teams Capabilities, Pricing Structure

Nerdio, a developer of Microsoft cloud products management tools, is expanding its capabilities further into the Microsoft “modern work” portfolio while introducing a per-customer, per-tenant pricing structure to allow for flat rates regardless of user count.

The Chicago-based company’s push beyond its specialties in Microsoft Azure and Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) offers new ways for MSPs to use Nerdio Manager for Microsoft’s collaboration tool Temas, cloud storage service OneDrive, document manager SharePoint and email product Exchange Online.

“We’re going to continue to be super focused on desktop virtualization, which is our heritage, but we’re going to be just as great when it comes to allowing you to leverage the full power of Microsoft 365,” Nerdio Chief Revenue Officer and co-founder Joseph Landes said. “We’re building out full capabilities to take advantage of a much deeper set of the Microsoft 365 tools.”

Among the new capabilities for Nerdio is centralized management for settings, file storage, email and compliance policies for Microsoft Teams, OneDrive, SharePoint and Exchange Online. The goal is improved collaboration and data management for solution providers leveraging these Microsoft products, according to the vendor.