Colt Technology Services (LSE: COLT.L) on Tuesday announced that it acquired ThinkGrid, a cloud platform provider focused on the channel partner segment.
By acquiring ThinkGrid, Colt said it will be able to extend cloud services into the diverse SMB market where IT resources are typically scarce but are more amenable to handing off IT functions to a third party.
Colt's timing couldn't be any better, as the SME market for managed services is forecast to grow at 15 percent annually over the next few years.
François Eloy, Colt EVP said that "The acquisition of ThinkGrid further strengthens our position with the addition of a complementary range of cloud-based services" and that "we also gain a reseller-oriented management platform and portal which will reduce our time to market across our European markets."
The deal provides benefits to both Colt and ThinkGrid alike.
Immediately Colt will add about 200 resellers and ISV's to its partner community in the UK in addition to giving channel partners other features such as auto-provisioning and flexible billing.
For ThinkGrid, the obvious upside is scale. The provider will able to access Colt's well-established market reach by gaining immediate access into 20 data centers and 22 European countries. In addition, it will be able to extend Colt's portfolio of data services (Ethernet), data centers and cloud services.
Colt's move to expand its cloud portfolio through acquisitions of companies that have particular expertise like ThinkGrid has become an emerging trend as service providers look to expand their respective reach and breadth of solutions.
For more:
- see the release
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