MSPmentor

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 >

Mergers and acquisitions continue at a rapid pace in the managed services industry. The latest deal involves Alentus — a managed service provider with software as a service expertise — acquiring two Linux-centric hosting firms.

Based in Laguna Niguel, Calif., Alentus snapped up Austin, Texas-based Website Source, Inc. and SpeedFox, Inc., which specialize in Linux website hosting. The acquisitions reinforce the growing popularity of hosting both open source and closed source applications under one roof.

Alentus’s acquisitions are the latest in a growing list of MSP buyouts followed by our MSPmentor M&A Tracker.

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mindSHIFT, a managed service provider, is pushing deeper into the software-as-a-service (SaaS) market. The company has acquired Collaboration Online, which specializes in hosted Microsoft applications.

This is the latest example of managed services converging with SaaS, and it reinforces many of the prime MSP opportunities we’ve been writing about in recent weeks — particularly hosted SharePoint, Dynamics and Exchange services.

It’s also the latest example of mergers and acquisitions within the MSP sector. (See our M&A Tracker for a list of deals.)

Here’s a bit more on mindSHIFT’s plans for Collaboration Online.

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