SnapAV and Control4 announce a "definitive merger agreement"-- one seeing SnapAV buying all Control4 shares in an all-cash agreement worth $680 million. In other words, it is less a merger and more, well, an outright acquisition.

According to the two companies, the deal makes a "highly complementary combination," bringing a one-stop shop with a complete portfolio of custom smart home, control and automation solutions. It also creates a single company with over 1200 employees, market-leading solutions, "exceptional" interoperability and channel platform, dealer-first programs, global distribution and financial resources to deliver value.

Dell vice chairman Jeff Clarke uses his Dell Technologies World 2019 day 2 keynote to point out the 5 "key imperatives" the industry needs to consider and invest in if it is to handle the "tsunami of data" headed its way.

According to IDC, the global data sphere is to reach 163 zetabytes (or "163 with 21 zeroes," as Clarke puts it) by 2025, thanks to the introduction of usage models brought about by 5G, such as autonomous cars. And a Dell survey cements how this growing surge of data is a priority for customers, since 68% of respondents plan to use emerging technology to drive and improve supply chain efficiency and transparency, while 77% want to use emerging technologies to anticipate and predict customer demand and manage resources. As such, IT needs to be able to scale to meet the data needs of today, never mind tomorrow.

The Dell Technologies World 2019 Global Partner Summit sees the company unveil an update on the Dell EMC Partner Program-- the Dell Technologies Partner Program, a means to make cross-selling easier for partners.

“Our partners asked us to make it easier to do business across our full Dell Technologies portfolio, so we made it a top priority,” the company says. “By providing our partners with a clear roadmap and investing in training and development, partners will win even more deals and grow their business.”

Intel reports earnings worth $16.1 billion in Q1 2019-- an essentially flat result on a Y-o-Y basis, with data-centric revenues dropping by -5% Y-o-Y and PC-centric revenues growing by 4% Y-o-Y.

"Results for Q1 2019 were slightly higher than our January expectations," Bob Swan says in his first earnings call as permanent Chipzilla CEO. "We shipped a strong mix of high-performance products and continued spending discipline while ramping 10nm and managing a challenging NAND pricing environment."

Dell and Cisco announce the extension of a decade-long system integrator agreement-- one that sees the two companies share product roadmaps and collaborate on "strategic development activities."

The pact pushes converged infrastructure (CI) solutions based on technologies developed by Cisco and what was then EMC together with VMware back in 2009. One result of the alliance is the VxBlock 1000 technology stack bringing together Cisco compute and networking and Dell EMC storage and data protection. Most recently the VxBlock 1000 got support for the Cisco 6454 fabric interconnect, as well as a broader range of Cisco M5 server options.

Intel announces the 9th generation of Core mobile H-series processors-- the "most powerful" generation of laptop chipsets from the company yet, offering up to 8 cores and 16 threads with clock speeds of 5GHz.

“Our new 9th Gen platform is designed to delight gamers, creators and performance users by giving them more of what they want," Chipzilla says. "We are bringing desktop-caliber performance with up to 5Ghz and 8 cores in a range of thinner systems and new level of connectivity with Wifi 6 (Gig+) so users can game or create where they want.”