MSP, Agent M&A Skyrocket as Microsoft, Dell Make Deals
Vendor consolidation remains hot, but channel partner mergers and acquisitions took the cake last month.
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Dell Technologies is divesting two significant assets.
The company announced the spinoff of VMware, whose security solution synergies never fully emerged, according to one analyst.
In addition, Dell ended up parting ways with Boomi, selling it to two investment firms.
Read about the VMware divestments.
The New York-based company has caught the eye of independent sales agents.
First, Upstack announced a new $50 million private equity investment. The company is using those funds to buy high-performing consultancies, like Cloudnexion.
We spoke to CEO Chris Trapp about his vision for Upstack.
Everyone in the connectivity channel is talking about M&A.
Last year saw a wave of consolidation among technology services distributors (aka master agents). AppSmart bought multiple companies, and TCG got in on the action as well. But the plot has thickened with the entrance of private equity into the space.
We spoke to master agents, subagents, analysts and vendors about why consolidation is taking place, and why outside forces are taking interest in the channel.
Read parts one and two of our agent consolidation series. We even talked about it on our podcast.
Say hello to the biggest private equity cloud investment ever.
Thoma Bravo announced plans to buy email security provider Proofpoint for $12.3 billion.
The deal will further pad Thoma Bravo’s cybersecurity portfolio, which also includes Imperva and Sophos. Many MSPs, however, have expressed concern about the impact of private equity on Proofpoint’s products.
See what analysts and MSPs had to say.
The Redmond, Washington-based corporation announced its second largest acquisition ever.
Microsoft announced plans to buy Nuance Communications, a natural language processing provider. The bill for the purchase totals $19.7 billion, dwarfed only by Microsoft’s $26.2 billion LinkedIn buy.
The acquisition will help augment AI capabilities in Azure, Dynamics 365 and Teams.
Check out Jeffrey Schwartz’s story.
Virginia-based telco Shenandoah Telecommunications will soon sell its wireless assets to T-Mobile.
Edward Gately reported that “Shentel” has laid off 30% of its workforce in advance of the integration. That adds up to 340 employees.
Shentel previously operated as a Sprint-exclusive personal communications service affiliate in the Midwest and East Coast.
Read more.
Two phishing providers came together.
Cofense, which provides phishing detection and response solutions, purchased Cyberfish, which provides similar services to SMBs. MSPs and MSSPs can take advantage of the combined offering.
Learn more about what the acquisition gives Cofense.
Cheryl Cook, who leads Dell‘s global partner, embedded and edge solutions marketing, spoke favorably about the merger between Synnex and Tech Data.
She cited Dell’s “strong and robust” Tech Data partnership. Dell has also partnered with Synnex.
“I think this natural consolidation in the industry is going to probably continue and we’ll be delighted to continue to work with them,” she told Channel Futures.
See what else Cook told our Christine Horton.
MSP consolidation proliferated this list.
Dynamic Quest leveraged private equity to buy an Alabama-based MSP. Dynamic Quest has bought seven companies since agreeing to a partnership with Spire Capital in 2018.
Learn what Dynamic Quest intends to accomplish.
A private equity growth infusion is bringing Keyfactor and PrimeKey together.
Keyfactor’s certificate life cycle automation will merge with PrimeKey’s public key infrastructure (PKI) certificate authority software to form a machine identity management platform.
We don’t know the financial terms of the transaction, but we know that Keyfactor’s CEO will serve as CEO of the combined company.
Edward Gately has the scoop.
The consultancy and MSP’s recent purchase reflect the channel’s ongoing convergence.
ARG bought its second telecom consultancy in two months.
ARG, a 29-year old company that started as a telecom agency, sells both directly and indirectly. The company also adopted a managed IT services practice and subsequently was ranked No. 1 in the Channel Futures MSP 501.
Read more about ARG.
London-based MSP Fifosys bought the first company outside of its home city.
Fifosys bought Enforce Technology, an MSP that focuses on cybersecurity and cloud. Enforce brings more than 50 clients into the Fifosys base.
Get details on other Fifosys acquisitions.
How does 19 sound?
That’s right – Converge Technology Solutions bought its 19th company. The Canadian firm bought the fifth largest HPE partner in Dasher Technologies.
The deal bolsters Converge’s presence on the West Coast and expands its managed service offerings.
Get details on Converge’s strategy.
How does 19 sound?
That’s right – Converge Technology Solutions bought its 19th company. The Canadian firm bought the fifth largest HPE partner in Dasher Technologies.
The deal bolsters Converge’s presence on the West Coast and expands its managed service offerings.
Get details on Converge’s strategy.
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
Want to contact the author directly about this story? Have ideas for a follow-up article? Email James Anderson or connect with him on LinkedIn. |
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