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12 Mar 2007
Integrator Logicalis has leapt back on the acquisition trail by opening up discussions with a number of potential targets just three months after making its last purchase.
Speaking exclusively to CRN, Tom Kelly, UK managing director of Logicalis, said the firm has been engaged in talks with multiple targets since snapping up CSF Solutions in December (CRN, 11 December).
“Our intent is not to go for more of the same, but to add more solution sets so we can go wider,” he said. “If we want to do something at the end of this year, it is important to continue speaking with a number of businesses. We’re interested in companies that work in business intelligence and application integration in and around the Microsoft arena. But we won’t limit ourselves to Microsoft alone.”
Kelly claimed that, because of its four UK acquisitions in the past 18 months, Logicalis is now a top-two partner for IBM and a top-five partner for Hewlett-Packard. The CSF acquisition also handed Logicalis its own data centre, which Kelly said it was using to launch an array of managed services.
He added that this will include a managed IP telephony offering – set to debut in April – featuring a layer of Cisco’s MeetingPlace collaboration platform and Federation technology from Microsoft.
“No one else in Europe is taking this and offering it as a managed service,” Kelly claimed.
Keith Humphreys, managing consultant at market watcher EuroLAN, said: “Logicalis has gone from being a simple network integrator to a major player in the data centre, which is where the action is. It’s going after the right market in the Microsoft contact centre space, but I would have thought it could build this capability by itself.”
Martin St Quinton, chief executive of rival VAR Azzurri, said: “We’re constantly looking at acquisition opportunities and are talking to a number of people. But I would be surprised if our next acquisition was in the Microsoft voice space. There are plenty of targets out there and plenty of opportunities for everyone.”
Logicalis claims acquisition will strengthen IBM and HP relationships
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