Which VARs and MSPs spent 2015 rolling up into larger businesses? Plenty of IT service provider acquisitions arrived this year. Here's a look at the M&A (merger and acquisition) deals... and how some companies are transforming into TSPs (total service providers).
2. January 2015: Evolve IP (cloud services) acquired Webcore Technologies, (MSP). Evolve gained deeper reach into Webcore's midmarket and enterprise customer base.
3. January 2015: Quartet Service (Canadian MSP) acquired En Vogue (MSP) and gained Microsoft Office 365 expertise. Quartet mainly services midmarket and enterprise customers.
4. February 2015: United Technology Group (Atlanta IT services provider) acquired Magnicom, an MSP in the financial and healthcare verticals.
5. February 2015: Exigent Technologies (MSP and CSP, New Jersey) acquired Information Architects (systems integration, New York). They began the M&A dance through their mutual membership in Ingram Micro VTN.
6. March 2015: Vology Inc. (virtualization VAR) acquired Offsite Technology Solutions (MSP) of Tampa, Fla.
7. May 2015: ConvergeOne (communications solutions) acquired Sunturn, an Avaya Platinum Partner to expand its midmarket reach in the healthcare and education verticals across the western and southern regions of the US. ConvergeOne is owned by Clearlake Capital Group, a private equity firm.
8. May 2015: SWK Technologies acquired ProductiveTech, a network monitoring, data backup and business continuity provider.
9. May 2015: TekLinks (a total service provider in Alabama) acquired Claris Networks, a cloud services provider in Tennessee.
10. May 2015: Axciom Corp. (marketing and data services) sold its IT infrastructure management operations to two private equity firms in a deal worth about $190 million. Charlesbank Capital Partners and M/C Partnersare the buyers. Axciom's IT business has been declining about 15 to 20 percent per quarter (year over year) in recent quarters.
11. May 2015: Day1 Solutions, a cloud services and solutions company, acquired Herndon, Va.-based OpenOsmium, a specialist in big data analytics, enterprise search leveraging and cloud technologies.
12. May 2015: QTS Realty Trust (data center real estated) acquire Virginia-based colocation, cloud and managed services provider Carpathia Hosting for approximately $326 million. Carpathia is a cloud services and IaaS provider in the federal market.
13. June 2015: World Wide Technology Inc. (IT integrator) acquired Asynchrony, Inc., a technology consulting firm specializing in application development, mobile computing, systems and sensor integration, enterprise architecture, and tactical collaboration.
This list, launched in Sept. 2015, is updated as new M&A deals happen. Send merger, acquisition and exit announcements to Channel E2E Content Czar Joe Panettieri ([email protected]).
