Avnet stays on services hunt with latest buy

Global distributor feathers its nest with US systems integrator, boosting services

Distributor Avnet is proving once again that its appetite for acquisitions to feed its services ambitions remains strong -- buying Seamless Technologies, a 21-year-old New Jersey systems integrator.

Seamless is focused on cloud transformation services as well as automation, virtualisation, integration, and Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) best practices.

The purchase of Seamless -- for an undisclosed sum -- marks the first Avnet buy since it combined all of its services capabilities in May under the Avnet Services umbrella, a segment within the company's rapidly growing Avnet Technology Solutions unit.

The services group announcement capped a 15-month targeted acquisition spree that has seen Avnet expand its services capacity and capabilities, particularly in solution sets built around IBM and HP technologies.

With the Seamless Technologies acquisition, Avnet gains a services organisation with a robust cloud practice generating some $14m (£8.9m) in revenue last year.

According to Avnet staff, Seamless has developed intellectual property and software that speeds integration and deployment of large-scale private cloud and IT infrastructure environments.

Tony Vottima, senior vice president and general manager for Avnet Services in the Americas, said this latest acquisition adds a critical component to its expanding services portfolio, with private cloud, virtualisation and datacentre automation services that broaden and deepen its offering.

"Seamless Technologies' domain expertise in financial services, healthcare, and insurance will complement our SolutionsPath strategy and enable our partners and customers to achieve their business goals," he said.

Avnet Services' unveiling comes at a fortuitous time in the market. IDC has estimated that spending on IT services will balloon to $674.9bn this year, with a four-year CAGR of four per cent.

This has led Avnet to beef up services capacity and capabilities through acquisition, particularly in the past 15 months, with the stated goal of augmenting partner services efforts in a variety of disciplines.

In January, the distributor snapped up TSSLink, an eight-year-old San Jose consulting, tech support and IT outsourcing firm specialising in storage and virtualisation with additional capabilities in IT audit and compliance, disaster recovery and business continuity.

Avnet made five similar buys in the past year. In November 2012, the company bought Genilogix, a Pittsburgh-based software and services provider and one of only 11 HP Software Elite Enhanced Partners. The acquisition came three months after Avnet bought Sewickley-based Pepperweed Consulting, a 16-year-old HP Software Elite Partner that focuses on partnering with other HP resellers to deploy and manage systems built around HP IT Performance Suite, Converged Cloud and Insight software.

Even as it was boosting its HP chops, Avnet was rounding out its IBM services capabilities. Last autumn, Avnet acquired BrightStar Partners and BSP Software, its associated software-development arm.

BrightStar, of Rolling Meadows, Illinois, is an IBM Premier Business Partner, IBM Value Added Reseller and IBM Independent Software Vendor focused on business analytics for business intelligence, financial performance management, enterprise score-carding and data warehousing. The software unit provides specific tools that extend the functionality of IBM Cognos software.

In March last year, Avnet purchased Ascendant Technology, of Austin, Texas, a $90m-a-year software integrator and consultancy that developed its own methodologies in support of IBM applications and tools. The deal added 500 technical and business professionals to the Avnet Technology Solutions unit.

Avnet also acquired asset-disposal specialist Canvas Systems in January 2012. The Norcross equipment lifecycle management and refurbished equipment sales firm was folded into Avnet Technology Solutions.

"Recent services acquisitions have been well received by our partners," said Vottima.

"The addition of these new service offerings supports our long-range vision of solutions distribution, delivering technologies, services and solutions that provide high business value and accelerate hardware, software and services sales.

"Our capabilities span presales through implementation, training and managed services, which create new opportunities for our suppliers and reseller partners."

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