CRN

Two CRN-sourced reports in June 2024 tracked AMD’s AI push and Fortinet’s Lacework deal, underscoring its focus on enterprise technology vendors and channel-relevant change.

Who they are

CRN appears in this coverage as a technology-industry news outlet, particularly around enterprise hardware, cloud security and the vendor ecosystem. Its strongest recurring associations are with Microsoft, Cisco, Dell and Apple, while reporters Kyle Alspach, Mark Haranas and Michael Novinson are prominent co-entities.

The recent arc

Coverage was most concentrated in 2024, with the recent high points split between the first and second quarters. The first-quarter stream paired broader PC and infrastructure signals, including Dell’s reported revenue decline and IDC’s finding of renewed global PC-market growth, with Microsoft’s introduction of a Copilot key on partner-built PCs. That placed traditional device and infrastructure vendors inside the emerging AI-PC narrative.

By June 2024, the focus had shifted more directly to enterprise AI infrastructure and security consolidation. CRN published a Q&A with AMD executive Forrest Norrod on faster accelerator releases, investment and open standards, then reported Fortinet’s agreement to acquire Lacework. The latest CRN-linked item, from June 2025, says AMD acquired the employees behind inference-chip developer Untether AI after announcing its Brium acquisition, extending that AI-optimization thread.

The tension

The coverage circles the race to make enterprise AI commercially deployable: AMD is seeking software and inference capabilities while stressing open standards, Microsoft is embedding Copilot into the PC channel and investing heavily in datacenters, and security vendors such as Fortinet are pursuing consolidation through Lacework. The underlying tension is between platform-scale AI investment and the need for interoperable, secure infrastructure that customers and channel partners can actually adopt.

Why it matters

If this trajectory continues, CRN’s relevant coverage will sit where AI spending changes the purchasing and partner landscape for infrastructure, endpoint and security vendors rather than simply where new models are announced. AMD’s talent and software moves, Microsoft’s platform push, and Fortinet’s acquisition activity point to a market in which differentiation may increasingly depend on deployment tooling, security and vendor ecosystems; whether those efforts translate into sustained customer demand remains unresolved in the supplied coverage.

Related: Microsoft · Cisco · Kyle Alspach · Mark Haranas · Michael Novinson