3 Cloud M&A Deals You May Have Missed

As the year comes to a close, Channel Futures would be remiss to overlook some of the recently announced under-the-radar cloud M&A that impacts partners. Here’s a look at three deals that promise to generate activity in 2020.

Snow Software Buys Embotics

Snow Software in early December said it had purchased hybrid cloud management provider Embotics. Terms were not disclosed.

The deal enables channel partners to help CIOs manage their full technology stacks, including software, hardware, infrastructure and applications, no matter where they reside, Snow Software said.

That’s important because the rapid shift to cloud means technology now goes beyond the traditional bounds of IT management and is consumed by every employee on demand, Sanjay Castelino, chief product officer at Snow Software, told Channel Futures.

Snow Software’s Sanjay Castelino

“This trend extends from old software to new apps, data center to serverless, private to public cloud and everything in between,” Castelino said. “The trend has created a new challenge for technology and business leaders who must understand, empower and govern the consumption of technology without slowing down innovation and execution. Channel partners are well positioned to help enterprises as they adapt to these challenges – and Snow’s acquisition of Embotics strengthens our ability to deliver a platform for organizations trying to better understand and manage an organization’s full technology stack on-premises, in the cloud and in hybrid environments.”

To that end, the Embotics platform automates provisioning, reduces costs, and ensures governance across private, public, hybrid and multicloud environments. The Snow-Embotics union extends these capabilities throughout the world.

“To date, Embotics’ primary market has been in North America with select customers and partners in the Asia Pacific region,” Castelino said. “With this acquisition, Embotics’ cloud management platform is supported on a global scale in markets where Snow has an established presence.”

Snow Software said to expect big things from the acquisition.

“Cloud migration planning, bring-your-own-license optimization and hybrid cost control are just the beginning of what our combined platform will help customers accomplish,” Vishal Rao, president and CEO of Snow Software, wrote in a Dec. 2 blog.

NTT Data Gobbles up Flux7

Amazon Web Services premier consulting partner Flux7 in early December announced it had agreed to an acquisition by global systems integrator NTT Data Services.

Flux7 specializes in cloud implementation, migration, automation and DevOps consulting, mostly within the financial services, retail, pharma, software and manufacturing verticals.

“The acquisition of Flux7 will enhance the value we can deliver in AWS, DevOps and Agile development capabilities, while aligning with our focus to drive digital services for our clients,” Bob Pryor, CEO of NTT Data Services, said. “With an excellent brand, industry recognition and impressive client base, as well as a strong record of growth, Flux7 is a strategic fit for our business and part of our ongoing strategy of growth through acquisition.”

Aater Suleman, co-founder and CEO of Flux7, will continue to lead day-to-day operations.

The companies did not say …

… how much the acquisition was worth.

NetEnrich, ThreatLandscape Merge

NetEnrich, a Microsoft gold partner for Azure and managed services provider, in November joined forces with ThreatLandscape.

The combined company is using the NetEnrich name. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed; the firms said all employees, including senior management from both sides, remain on board. NetEnrich CEO Raju Chekuri will continue in that role.

NetEnrich provides an AI-based incident management platform.

ThreatLandscape offers an AI-driven cybersecurity SaaS platform. It extracts threat signals from physical and cloud infrastructure, analyzes the data, and delivers the requisite insights so IT and security teams can act accordingly.

Combined, NetEnrich and ThreatLandscape will bring to market a platform for engineering, IT ops and risk management, eliminating silos.

NetEnrich’s Raju Chekuri

“Most people are buying multiple tools to make all that work and keep it running,” Chekuri told Channel Futures. “We bring a platform that allows enterprises of all sizes to simplify.”

Channel partners can provision the solution themselves or work with NetEnrich to serve the end user. This is especially key for VARs to understand. Many such partners still are trying to add services to their portfolios, especially targeting midmarket organizations. The new NetEnrich supports such efforts, Chekuri said.

“We bring [VARs] scale and scope to compete with larger outsourcing folks,” he said. “And we provide local support at same time. So you can get into business and increase recurring revenue and scale.”

All this comes as partners throughout the indirect channel are figuring out how cloud will shape the future, Chekuri added.

“They’re getting disintermediated so the question is, how do you stay relevant? If you don’t get into services at scale, many won’t be relevant,” he said.

The answer, he noted, is to team with vendors that roll out capabilities quickly to MSPs, VARs and other partners.

“They can build a high-margin business starting tomorrow,” Chekuri said.

Praveen Hebbagodi, CEO of ThreatLandscape, agreed.

“Cybersecurity has traditionally been siloed from IT in midmarket businesses and smaller enterprises,” Hebbagodi said. “Ironically, these businesses are at the top of the risk pile due to increasing digital attack surfaces, limited security postures, and reactive cybersecurity controls. Along with NetEnrich, we can ensure that channel partners and end customers have the protection they need without sacrificing application and infrastructure uptime or performance.”

NetEnrich says it works with more than 100 channel partners and 1,500 customer throughout the United States, Europe and Japan.