With the entire Penton Team headlining the inaugural Channel Directions Live event in Tampa this week, there were plenty of great news stories that fell off our radar in between all the hubbub. Here are some of the top stories we wish we had time to write about, but didn't, for the week ending Oct. 2.

Schneider Electric Appoints New CTO: Energy management and automation solution provider Schneider Electric has named Prith Banerjee as chief technology officer, responsible for driving the company’s R&D throughput as well as leading its R&D Simplification Programs.

Prior to his appointment, Prith served as managing director of Global Technology R&D at Accenture, and also held the title of chief technology officer and executive vice president at ABB, among others. He spend more than 20 years in higher education serving in various roles, including as a professor, department chairman and dean at the University of Illinois and Northwestern University, according to the announcement.

Insight Purchases BlueMetal: Insight Enterprises has acquired interactive design and technology architecture firm BlueMetal for an undisclosed sum. The acquisition is expected to help Insight bolster its ability to help customers in new geographies to extend their application design, mobility and business analytics capabilities, according to the announcement.

“BlueMetal's award-winning work in the area of application design, mobility and big data enable clients to empower their work forces and engage with customers in an increasingly mobile world,” said Steve Dodenhoff, president of Insight U.S. “We are thrilled with the addition of the BlueMetal team.”

Palo Alto’s AutoFocus Service Now Available Globally: Palo Alto Networks (PANW) has made its AutoFocus threat intelligence cloud service generally available across the globe. AutoFocus allows users to share intelligence, analytics and context to stop threats and prevent future attacks, according to the announcement.

The solution, which launched in April as a community access offering, is being sold as a per-seat annual subscription and is available through all of Palo Alto’s channel partners.

Good Technology Announces Support for Box: Box customers now have access to the Good Dynamics Secure Mobility platform through a new partnership with the mobile content management vendor. The addition of Good Dynamic Secure Mobility is expected to allow users to securely access their Box content directly within the app container, according to the announcement. All changes will be implemented automatically to existing Box customers.

“Our customers rely on Good to enable enterprise grade security across their workflows, enabling their users to share, manage and collaborate with content on the device and in the cloud,” said Christy Wyatt, chairman and CEO of Good Technology. “Good’s expanded content management capabilities enable seamless and secure access to Box files directly from within any Good Dynamics application.”

Nuance Extends Partnership with Samsung Electronics: Nuance Communications (NUAN) is expanding its partnership with Samsung Electronics to provide document imaging solutions to joint customers. The agreement will allow Samsung to sell and distribute Nuance AutoStore and a host of the company’s other document imaging solutions, with Nuance responsible for providing service and support for customers.

“Nuance and Samsung will work together over the next few years to deliver solutions that enable organizations to gain control of their print, capture and workflow environments,” Michael Rich, executive vice president and general manager of Nuance Document Imaging. “Together, we will push into new vertical markets, address security and compliance mandates, and embrace mobile workflows – all while providing enhanced service, support and training to our customers.”