Perhaps the headline is for me -- rather than you. After a one-week vacation, I returned today to discover a range of technology mergers and acquisitions had either been announced or completed in recent days. Here are five recent tech M&A deals, along with the potential partner implications.
1. Consumer IoT: Comcast has agreed to acquire smart home management company iControl to bolster its smart home service offerings. Based in Austin, Texas, iControl’s primary consumer product is the Piper home security system, which features devices as well as a platform-as-a-service management software suite, according to RCRWirelessNews. The move comes amid an IoT consumer market inflection point. Apple recently announced the Home app to control IoT devices. And Google NEST leadership recently changed amid major question marks in the market...
2. Industrial and Corporate IoT: HMS Industrial Networks AB, which focuses on industrial automation, has acquired Intesis Software, which specializes in home and building automation solutions. Financial terms were not disclosed.
3. Data Center Buyouts, Part A: Digital Realty Trust Inc. (DLR) has completed the previously announced acquisition of eight carrier-neutral data centers in Europe from Equinix. The deal was valued at $874 million, or a multiple of approximately 13 times the anticipated full-year 2016 portfolio EBITDA. That sounds like a lofty valuation to us. Meanwhile, Equinix continues to promote a channel friendly "cloud of clouds" strategy, giving partners and customers speedy onramps to various network and cloud services.
4. Data Center Buyouts, Part B: Lightower Fiber Networks has acquired Datacenter101, a Columbus, Ohio-based data center and colocation provider. The deal expands Lightower's reach across Ohio, where the company has metro fiber networks in Akron, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Dayton and Toledo, FierceTelecom reports.
5. Fixing the Business?: KKR, a global investment firm, has acquired Epicor Software, which makes a portfolio of vertical market business applications. Financial terms were not disclosed, but industry insiders suggest the sale price was $3.3 billion. Diginomica does a strong job describing how Epicor has been striving to pivot its business amid the IoT and big data waves.
6. Bonus Deal: Proving again we can't do simple math with out headlines, deal number six involves a managed and cloud services push. Dublin-based IT managed services firm Evros has acquired Inspired Software and Services for an undisclosed sum as it targets further growth, according to Irish Times. Inspired SS mainly offers Microsoft Azure technologies, Office 365 and SharePoint services to clients, doing about €2 million in services a year, the paper reported.
What Did We Miss?: Is your company involved in an M&A deal? Send me the details ([email protected]) and perhaps ChannelE2E will generate some media coverage in the days ahead.
