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Best Buy Sells mindSHIFT Cloud Services, MSP Business to Ricoh
Ricoh today announced it will be acquiring mindSHIFT, BestBuy's cloud services and managed services business, to expand its service portfolio.
2 Min Read
Ricoh Americas COO and EVP Tracey Rothenberger says a primary focus for Ricoh is IT Services.
Ricoh today announced it will be acquiring mindSHIFT, BestBuy’s (BBY) cloud services and managed services business, to expand its service portfolio. The company told Talkin’ Cloud that it would not be publicly disclosing the dollar figure. Best Buy acquired mindSHIFT in 2011 for $167 million and the deal was completed in January 2012.
FOR A LOOK BACK AT mindSHIFT’s M&A HISTORY, CLICK HERE
According to Tokyo-based Ricoh, the addition of mindSHIFT’s customer service professionals will “bring a wide array of benefits to the customers Ricoh is currently serving.”
Ricoh Americas COO and EVP Tracey Rothenberger told Talkin’ Cloud in an interview that “IT Services is a primary focus for Ricoh and an important part of our customer offerings.
“With that in mind, over the past six months, we have made several strong, scalable investments in our IT Services business as part of our commitment and focus to expand our services portfolio,” he said. “This acquisition is part of that strategy.”
Channel partners should take note of the following key points from the news:
The acquisition will enable Ricoh to expand “customer relationships and IT Services portfolio, and drive value and growth in this space” through “mindSHIFT’s leadership in the SMB space,” Rothenberger said.
MindSHIFT will continue to operate under its current name, management team and capabilities. The company has 650 employees at various offices who will remain with the company.
Today mindSHIFT works with 6,900 clients, according to the Ricoh press release issued today. When Best Buy acquired mindSHIFT, the company managed 25,000 desktops for 5,400 clients, according to the press release announcing Best Buy acquisition deal.
The acquisition is expected to close in February 2014 at which time mindSHIFT will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Ricoh.
When asked about future acquisitions, Rothenberger said the company plans to expand resources to offer further solutions to its customers.
“We will continue to make business decisions that will further expand our services offerings throughout and beyond 2014,” he added.
MSPmentor speculated back in November 2013 that Best Buy had plans to sell mindSHIFT, questioning Best Buy’s involvement in the managed services provider (MSP) business.
MindSHIFT President and CEO Mona Abutaleb succeeded Paul Chisholm, former CEO of mindSHIFT, in November 2013.
Best Buy acquired mindSHIFT back in November 2011. The managed and cloud services business has been included in our MSPmentor 501 list for several years and has also been recognized on our Top 100 Cloud Services Provider (CSP) list on Talkin’ Cloud.
Please feel free to follow CJ Arlotta on Twitter @cjarlotta for further updates on this story.
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