MSP, Agent M&A Skyrocket as Microsoft, Dell Make Deals

Large agent and MSP firms are expanding where they operate via M&A.

Normally, vendors dominate our monthly recap of technology consolidation stories. However, 2021 has deviated from the norm. Two months ago the talk of the channel was not supplier deals but a massive distributor deal. Now we’re seeing the customer-facing partners take more of the spotlight. On the MSP side, one company just made its 19th foray into M&A. On the agent side, an upstart firm with a colocation specialization announced the first of many deals to come.

Of course, we still covered the vendors. We have some some mind-bending numbers, as Microsoft announced the second largest purchase in its history and a private equity firm announced potentially the largest SaaS investment ever.

Not every story made our roundup. For example, Aruba officially integrated its portfolio with that of Silver Peak, which it bought last year. And endpoint-to-cloud security provider Lookout announced a new program following its acquisition of CipherCloud.

Scroll through the 16 stories in our slideshow above to see channel-impacting stories of consolidation.

Did you miss our previous M&A roundup? Check out the March edition