Here's a look at five news stories of interest to the channel from last week, focusing on key numbers within those stories.

$8 billion to $10 billion – Sale price range Hewlett Packard Enterprise is reportedly seeking for its software division in talks with private equity firm Thoma Bravo, according to Reuters. The news agency said Thoma Bravo has made the highest offer among the private equity firms that have held discussions with HPE about the $3.6 billion unit. Others reportedly include Vista Equity Partners, Carlyle and TPG Capital. 

12 percent - Increase in productivity Intel says its 14-nm processors, which are part of the chip maker's new, seventh-generation Kaby Lake processors, will deliver over its sixth-generation Core processors. Intel launched Kaby Lake last week. One partner believes Kaby Lake will help boost sales to customers that have been looking for the kind of performance improvements they have been expecting from modern PCs.

324 – Number of days between the announcement of Dell's agreement to buy EMC and its Aug. 30 announcement that the deal had cleared its last hurdle: antitrust approval from the Chinese government. The merger of the two companies – which will be called Dell Technologies – is scheduled to become official Sept. 7.

18 — Percentage points Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump outpolled Democratic rival Hillary Clinton by in an August poll of solution providers conducted by CRN. A month earlier, in a similar poll, the two major-party candidates were tied.

$1.4 billion – Sales for cybersecurity vendor Palo Alto Networks in its 2016 fiscal year, which ended July 31. The sales represented a 49 percent year-over-year jump. CEO Mark McLaughlin cited his company as being a driving force behind a major paradigm shift from stand-alone security offerings to a comprehensive platform model. Customers are adopting that approach in record numbers, he said.