The top end of town remains takeover hungry, especially UXC. Barely a week goes by without the giant publicly listed integrator snapping up one IT firm or another.
I have also noticed plenty of action among smaller players. Earlier this month, I spoke to south-east Queensland-based MSP Smile IT, which has ambitions to dominate the Sunshine Coast region. I was also speaking to Fast50 regular Thinkin’ IT over in Western Australia – they’ve just acquired a one-man band that should help expand their reach south of Perth.
Of course, consolidation is a perennial feature of the vendor community. The big one in recent weeks was Oracle’s pounce on Responsys for an eye-watering $1.4 billion. With Responsys, Oracle hopes to grab a larger share of the fast-growing marketing services space.
Oracle has already bought two complementary firms, Compendium and Eloqua. It’ll face stiff competition from Salesforce.com, which took a $2.5 billion gamble on ExactTarget last June, and Adobe, which bought Neolane earlier this year for $600 million.
Only time will tell who will win in the much-hyped marketing automation sector. One thing is clear: M&A works best when there is a strong overlap of culture, shared expectations and scope to enter new markets.
As a business journo, I’ve spent much of my career covering mergers and acquisitions. So there was a nice symmetry to the announcement late last year that CRN itself had been acquired. Along with our stable mates iTnews and PC & Tech Authority, we have joined nextmedia, one of the largest magazine publishers in Australia.
It has been immediately clear that the buyout fits with the ideals I outlined above: our company cultures match-up; there’s enough crossover of markets to offer synergies while leaving plenty of scope for growth; and our new owners are bullish about the opportunities in channel publishing.
It puts CRN in the strongest possible position to start 2014 and I’m very excited about the prospects ahead. I hope the same is true for your business.
Steven Kiernan is the editor of CRN. Email skiernan@techpartner.news
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