Last Week's News, By The Numbers

The top story of the week was the announced $650 million blockbuster acquisition of hyper-converged superstar SimpliVity by Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Also, Avaya announced it has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, and two solution providers are coming together to create a $500 million market leader.

25 percent – Expected combined annual growth rate of the hyper-converged market by 2020, according to Hewlett Packard Enterprise, which is acquiring hyper-converged superstar SimpliVity for $650 million in cash. HPE foresees a nearly $6 billion market in three years. Partners say the deal will reshape the hyper-convergence landscape and put the heat on rival Cisco Systems. HPE said that by combining its portfolio in infrastructure, automation and cloud management software with SimpliVity's software-defined data management platform, the company will deliver the industry's only "built-for-enterprise" hyper-converged offering.

$6 billion – Debt load of unified communication vendor Avaya, which announced that it has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The company said it needs to raise $600 million for a debt maturity in October. Avaya said it obtained a committed $725 million debtor-in-possession financing facility underwritten by Citibank, subject to court approval. The company says this financing, combined with cash from operations, is expected to provide sufficient liquidity during the Chapter 11 cases to support business operations and minimize disruption. CEO Kevin Kennedy called Chapter 11 "the best path forward."

$1 billion – Value of rebates Apple is accusing Qualcomm of withholding in retaliation for Apple cooperating with antitrust authorities in South Korea who were looking into the chip maker's licensing businesses. That accusation was included as part of a lawsuit Apple has filed against Qualcomm, alleging that it demanded "onerous, unreasonable and costly" terms for licensing its patents. The rebates were aimed at keeping Qualcomm modems in products like the iPhone and iPad, according to CNBC. Neither company responded to a request for comment from CRN.

2,000 – Number of employees at Systems Maintenance Services (SMS) and Curvature, two formidable independent third-party IT services vendors that announced they will merge to create a $500 million market leader. The deal, slated to close by the end of February, will combine $250 million IT services and lifecycle maintenance provider SMS and $288 million third-party IT services and networking hardware provider Curvature. Financial terms were not disclosed. The merged company will create an IT asset lifecycle services powerhouse with a broad range of third-party IT data center services and hardware offerings that include server, storage and networking.

$100 million Intel's intended five-year investment in Internet of Things (IoT) efforts in the retail industry. That will accompany the chip giant's new IoT platform focused on that vertical. The platform - Responsive Retail Platform – will be available through the channel, and offers retail hardware, software, APIs and sensors to help retailers integrate technologies and find new business insights. At last week's National Retail Federation conference, CEO Brian Krzanich said Responsive Retail would "help transform how people shop and how shops can better serve them."