Ingram fluffs up cloud business with Ensim acquisition

Ingram CEO describes deal as 'excellent complement' to distributor's business

Ahead of its planned Chinese takeover, Ingram Micro has dipped into its wallet to acquire application distribution specialist Ensim.

The deal, agreed for an undisclosed sum, is expected to close in the next 30 days, subject to customary closing conditions and the approval of Ensim's shareholders. The acquisition marks the latest in a number of investments the world's largest distributor has made in recent years in bolstering its standing as a cloud player.

Alain Monié, Ingram Micro CEO, said: "This acquisition is an excellent complement to Ingram Micro and we look forward to Ensim joining our team."

Ensim was founded 18 years on the back of a graduate research programme at Cornell University into virtualisation technology. The company is headquartered in San Jose, and also runs offices in London and the Indian city of Durgapur. It describes itself as a "leading provider of solutions to automate on-boarding, orchestration, provisioning, and management of users and organisations with business applications, services, and infrastructure in private, public, and hybrid clouds".

Selling through a partner network of resellers, integrators, and services providers, Ensim claims to serve more than 5,000,000 users across 20,000 end-user customers, ranging from small businesses to large enterprises. CEO David Wippich described the buyout as "a superb next step" for his firm.

"We expect to leverage the financial strength, brand recognition and global infrastructure of Ingram Micro to further speed the growth of our business," he added. "Our customers and employees will benefit from this union and we are excited to partner with Ingram Micro."

Ingram is itself in the process of being acquired, having earlier this year agreed a $6bn sale to Chinese conglomerate Tianjin Tianhai.