GlassHouse lines up new acquisitions

Bullish VAR GlassHouse Technologies intends to continue pursuing its aggressive acquisition strategy as its confidence grows.

The storage consultancy giant, which tripled in size last month after acquiring UK VARs Source Consulting and Sagitta Performance Systems, is planning further acquisitions in the US and Europe.

Jason Rabbetts, managing director of GlassHouse UK, told CRN: "We have now managed to get all our services integrated. Our sales teams also are working on common systems using a common set of tools. They are now delivering the GlassHouse proposition to customers, new and old.

"We have already made two more acquisitions in the US over the past week and there are more in the pipeline. However, we are going to concentrate on the UK model before making any more acquisitions, and use it as a 'cookie cutter' for our strategy in Europe," he said.

Rabbetts added that customers are not looking at buying more storage hardware and software, but want to make more use of what they already have.

"Our role is to help customers make their storage equipment more productive. We think people are only getting about 25 per cent value out of their kit, and 75 per cent remains unused."

He added that the firm will focus on finance and banking as key markets, followed by retail and distribution.

Jon Collins, principal analyst at Quocirca, said GlassHouse was making the right moves. "A larger-scale services company such as GlassHouse makes sense," he said. "Companies need to make better use of their storage rather than buying new systems."

Collins added that before the downturn, storage vendors were "making hay" and shifting "shedloads" of hardware and software, but customers have become wiser about spending.

"Firms are no longer making major new investments. Vendors need to realise it is more about integration than flogging new kit," he said.

sara_yirrell@vnu.co.uk