Carousel Buying OmniPresence: Managed Services Meets UC

A pending union of two New England-based integrators has a managed services dimension. Carousel Industries, of Exeter, R.I., has inked a letter of intent to acquire OmniPresence Inc., a company with headquarters in Marlborough, Mass. Carousel focuses on data networking and unified communications, while OmniPresence specialized in video conferencing solutions. The companies didn’t disclose the deal’s financial terms. Upon completion of the purchase, OmniPresence will provide the basis for Carousel’s Visual Communications and Collaboration Group.

Both companies have segued into managed services. Carousel’s managed services portfolio includes help desk, software release management, backup storage and security audit. The company operates a network operations center, from which it monitors voice, data and video networks.

OmniPresence, meanwhile, charges customers by the hour to use its multipoint bridges for video conferencing. The company also offers a colocation service for customers who own their video conferencing infrastructure, but don’t want to keep it in house. For customers with on-premise gear, OmniPresence offers troubleshooting and break/fix services.

The managed services field has become an important slice of the company’s business.

“It is a big focus area and an area of growth for us,” said Tim Hill, chief technology officer at OmniPresence.

The combined companies will pool their resources toward providing unified communications solutions. Managed services seems likely to play a role in both managing customer environments and providing another method to acquire solutions — via colocation, for example.

Hill said the companies have also discussed incorporating video conferencing infrastructure in the data centers Carousel constructs.

If the deal goes through, OmniPresence will become Carousel’s sixth acquisition in the last two years. The other acquisitions include TAC Centre, Westwood, Mass.; Juma Technology, Farmingdale, N.Y.; LANForce Consulting Group, Atlanta, Ga.; assets from TriNET Systems, Canton, Mass., and Canada-based BrantTel Networks.

Carousel had estimated 2010 revenue of more than $200 million.

The deal is the latest in a spate of Q1, 2011 MSP acquisitions.

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