Last Week's News, By The Numbers

Two giants within the ranks of solution providers – Accenture and Capgemini – made big announcements last week. Accenture said it would add jobs in the U.S. while Capgemini announced a pair of acquisitions.

15,000 – Number of U.S. jobs solution provider giant Accenture is committing to create within the next three years. Ireland-based Accenture – No. 2 on CRN's Solution Provider 500 – plans to accelerate its investments in the U.S. to boost new technology innovations by opening 10 new innovation hub centers across the country and investing $1.4 billion in training between now and 2020.

450 – Approximate number of employees at two companies purchased by solution provider giant Capgemini that the company announced last week. Paris-based Capgemini – No. 6 on CRN's Solution Provider 500 - said its acquisitions of Palo Alto, Calif.-based Idean and Columbia, S.C.-based TCube Solutions would enhance its digital design and strategy skills and its expertise around Duck Creek Technologies, a provider of insurance software and services. "Service providers who bring digital design, creativity, and agility to redefine the customer experience are developing a strategic dialog with their clients, driving uniquely differentiated outcomes, and gaining market share," said Paul Hermelin, Capgemini's chairman and CEO, in a statement.

$1.25 million – Starting list price for Dell EMC's Enterprise Hybrid Cloud technology, which, combined with the vendor's VxRail hyper-converged infrastructure appliances, is being offered as a turnkey hybrid cloud to small and mid-sized enterprises. The ECH targets hybrid cloud deployments for 200 to 1,000 virtual machines. The entry-level deployment, at the starting price, is based on four VxRail P470 appliances and all the necessary software and lifecycle services.

52 – Percentage of Salesforce sales that are touched by channel partners, according to Neeracha Taychakhoonavudh, Salesforce's senior vice president of partner programs. As it kicked off its new fiscal year, Salesforce revealed updates to its Consulting Partner Program that are aimed at helping partners deepen their expertise across industry verticals and products. Salesforce is employing a new partner tier system. The latest tiers will bring greater visibility to partners that have achieved certifications across more products, including Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud and other offerings. Salesforce is also releasing a Commerce Cloud certification in the next couple of months.

$200 million – Money Veeam has allocated to recruit more cloud services partners to its ranks of about 45,000 channel partners. The investment is an extension of the vendor's Cloud Connect Program, and includes a $1,000 credit for customers taking the cloud plunge with Veeam, its VARs and its army of 14,000 cloud providers. Along with that, Veeam has "neutralized" discrepancies between traditional software license deals and subscription-based cloud deals, according to Peter McKay, Veeam's president and COO.