MSPmentor

Managed Data Holdings LLC, which specializes in SAS 70 certified data centers, has acquired Stargate, a managed service provider in Oak Brook, Ill. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

MDH, by acquiring Stargate, plans to push into the Chicago market with colocation,  performance-based IP routing, disaster recovery solutions, managed services, and managed hosting, according to a statement from the company.

This is the latest in a growing list of acquisitions to land on MSPmentor’s M&A Tracker.

Managed service providers have flooded me with email in recent days. Dozens of MSPs wanted more information about Sparxent, a start-up company in Salt Lake City, Utah, that’s acquiring MSPs and solutions providers across the globe.

But the notes got me thinking: If you’re so eager to sell, chances are Sparxent and other buyers won’t want to acquire you. Here’s why.

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Sparxent, a start-up company based in Salt Lake City, Utah, is seeking to acquire managed service providers and VARs that generate roughly $5 million to $20 million in annual revenues.

The company, backed by vSpring Capital, today disclosed that it has acquired NetworkD Corp. of Newport Beach, California. Sparxent has also signed a letter of intent to acquire Arbyte of Moscow.

The VAR Guy spoke with Sparxent co-founder David R. Taylor to learn more about the company’s ongoing acquisition strategy. Here are some highlights from the conversation. Read More >

DataPipe, a managed service provider in Jersey City, N.J., has received $75 million in credit and equity financing from Goldman Sachs. The company plans to use the money to expand its data facilities and enhance service offerings.

DataPipe is a bit more sophisticated than your typical neighborhood MSP. The company partners with Cisco, Microsoft, Red Hat, Sun and VMware — and dozens of other companies — and has global reach.

Goldman’s investment in DataPipe signals the continued flow of money into the managed services market.  Our MSPmentor M&A Tracker has spotted nearly 20 MSP-related mergers, acquisitions and investments so far this year.

June is turning into “merger and acquisition month” for managed service providers. The latest deal involves telecommunications service provider Network Billing Systems (NBS) acquiring Simlab.net, an MSP.

This is the 16th deal this year — and the sixth in June — to land on our MSPmentor M&A  Tracker. Here’s a bit more on the NBS-Simlab.net combo.

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Symantec has made another move in the managed storage market, acquiring Swapdrive. The deal pushes Symantec deeper into online storage, where the company already offers the Symantec Protection Network (SPN).

While SPN is a software as a service (SaaS) option for VARs and MSPs, Swapdrive targets consumers.

Symantec-Swapdrive is the fifth deal added this month to our MSPmentor M&A Tracker, which charts MSP- and SaaS-oriented mergers, acquisitions and investments. Here’s a bit more about Swapdrive. Read More >

GTCR Golder Rauner, a private equity firm, says it is investing in IQNavigator, which specializes in vendor-neutral managed service programs.

This is the second time in less than two weeks that a private equity firm has pumped money into an MSP-focused company. And it’s the latest deal to land on our MSPmentor M&A Tracker, our fast-growing list of mergers, acquisitions and investments across the MSP landscape.

Here’s more on the GTCR-IQNavigator deal, and the three-act play that I expect to see as the MSP industry both expands and consolidates.

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If you believe the Microsoft bashers, open source and software as a service (SaaS) will ultimately destroy Microsoft’s traditional software markets and revenue streams. But while open source continues to gain serious momentum, we’re not seeing solutions providers and SaaS experts abandon Microsoft. On the contrary, a growing number of Microsoft partners are lining up to support Dynamics CRM, SharePoint and Exchange Server.

The latest example involves Frontpages (www.fpweb.net), a hosting provider that plans to offer Dynamics CRM to small businesses (starting at $99 per month), corporate ($495) and larger enterprises ($4,595 per month). Read More >