2019's biggest mergers and acquisitions... so far

Powernet and Evolve IT aim high with merger

9 January

Sydney managed services provider Powernet IT solutions merged with Evolve IT Australia, based in Victoria.

The companies revealed the move at the beginning of January, announcing that the businesses would combine to create a managed services powerhouse with a combined 50 years of experience.

The new entity said it was now a multi-national SMB and mid-market services provider with a team of more than 90 people, located in six offices across Australia and New Zealand. 

Read the full story here.

AWS acquires Dell-backed CloudEndure

13 January

CloudEndure, an Israeli data migration technology specialist backed by Dell Technologies, was snagged by leading cloud juggernaut Amazon Web Services.

Israeli media reports suggested the purchase price was in the US$200 to US$250 million range.

The Israeli-American developer of advanced replication technology posted on its website: "this acquisition expands our ability to deliver innovative and flexible migration, backup, and disaster recovery solutions."

Read the full story here.

RingCentral to acquire Connect First to bolster cloud contact centre expertise

15 January

Unified-communications as-a-service specialist RingCentral purchased cloud-based contact centre provider Connect First, to hone its focus on customer engagement.

The combination was designed to bring together RingCentral's inbound contact centre technology with Connect First's technology for outbound and blended customer interactions. This lets businesses better manage call centre productivity and responsiveness of agents, while end customers use their preferred form of digital communications channels.

Read the full story here.  

Harris Technology enters blockchain world with $2.45 million acquisition

18 January

Harris Technology dipped its toes into the world of blockchain with the $2.45 million acquisition of software and services company Lincd.

Lincd develops a platform that connects legacy software to blockchains. The company is currently owned by investment firm First Growth Funds (FGF), which bought the business in 2018.

Harris plans to use Lincd's platform to deploy blockchain solutions internally to improve its e-commerce business, with the possibility of launching a blockchain-based loyalty program in the future. Harris also plans to offer Lincd as one if the cloud services it sells.

Read the full story here.  

Microsoft acquires another open source company

25 January

Microsoft bulked up its database portfolio by snagging Citus, a startup that extends open source PostgreSQL into a distributed database that scales to the needs of large enterprises.

The acquisition of the US-based company founded in 2010 reaffirms Microsoft's commitment to open source, and enabling production deployments of PostgreSQL on Azure, said Rohan Kumar, Microsoft's corporate vice president for Azure Data, on the company's blog.

"Citus is an innovative open-source extension to PostgreSQL that transforms PostgreSQL into a distributed database, dramatically increasing performance and scale for application developers," Kumar said.

Read the full story here. 

EY acquires Sydney SAP specialist Plaut IT Australia

29 January

Global consulting giant EY acquired Sydney SAP specialist Plaut IT Australia for an undisclosed sum.

The deal saw 130 people across Plaut and its Malaysian subsidiary Baseliner join EY’s technology services arm. The acquisition marks EY’s third digital buyout in seven months.

Plaut’s major clients include the likes of Toyota Australia, Sanitarium and a number of state and federal government departments.

Read the full story here. 

Aussie Salesforce partner Sqware Peg acquired by US-based Simplus

31 January

Aussie Salesforce partner Sqware Peg was acquired by US-based Salesforce partner Simplus as it expands further into the Asia Pacific region.

Sqware Peg said it was Salesforce’s first Australian partner, specialising in the software platform since its inception in 2004. The company has offices in Sydney and Melbourne.

Simplus specialises in quote-to-cash implementations, the integration and automated management of end-to-end business processes on the sell side.

Read the full story here.

Fusion5 acquires another Microsoft Dynamics specialist

1 February

Fusion5 has acquired fellow Microsoft Dynamics 365 specialist Dynamics Group, bringing over new staff and adding more clients to its growing customer base.

Dynamics Group was founded in Brisbane in 2017, specialising in Dynamics 365-based CRM products. The company has four core staff members and 10 customers.

As part of the acquisition, Dynamics Group founder Ross Guthrie will join Fusion5 as its CRM business development manager. The rest of the team will join Fusion5's Brisbane office.

Read the full story here.

Sydney AWS partner Cloudten snapped up for $8.6 million

4 February

Transaction Solutions International (TSN) completed the acquisition of Sydney-based cloud and security service provider Cloudten.

The acquisition was approved by TSN's shareholders on 29 January, paying an initial $3 million to Cloudten, plus another $5.6 million to be paid in tranches over the next 12 months.

Cloudten is an AWS advanced consultancy partner with competencies in government and security. The company raked in $3.8 million in revenue in the year ending 30 June 2018, for $1.6 million in net profit. For its efforts, Cloudten placed No.4 in the CRN Fast50 for 2018, growing 155.16 percent in FY17-18. That year also saw Cloudten more than double its headcount, score a place on the UK government's digital marketplace and win work with major public sector agencies.

Read the full story here.

Computergate sets sights on west coast with iTLC acquisition

5 February

Melbourne-headquartered services outfit Computergate acquired iTLC, one of its Perth-based service agent partners, in a concerted effort to tackle the west coast.

Founded in 2000, iTLC provides hardware, software, internet and end-user solutions, though its website highlights its Windows server and virtualisation, web development, data protection and site support in particular, focusing on offering a diverse skill set to clients.

Computergate will maintain the iTLC brand and run the company as its own Perth branch, with the original team staying on board led by branch manager Simon Hindley.

Read the full story here.

VMware acquires remote device management vendor AetherPal

6 February

VMware said Tuesday it would purchase a technology partner that enables IT administrators to remotely monitor and update devices in the field.

AetherPal's technology will boost the capabilities of VMware's Workspace ONE remote device management platform, said Shankar Iyer, VMware's senior vice president and general manager of end-user computing, in a company blog post announcing an agreement for the deal.

The platform can remotely view in real-time the screens of smartphones, tablets and laptops, and enable central IT to control, troubleshoot and fix those devices, and the applications they run, while they're in the field, Iyer said.

Read the full story here.

Coffs Harbour MSP's acquisition propels expansion into Port Macquarie

12 February

Coffs Harbour-headquartered C3 Group reckons it’s in a good place, both geographically and strategically.

The managed service provider recently scored a batch of new customers in a new city, after acquiring the client list of Port Macquarie’s Baker IT, which wound down its operations in December.

From the deal, C3 has gained more than a dozen new managed clients in the 30-100 seat range, and found suitable alternative service provider homes for the smaller customers on the acquired list.

Read the full story here.

Palo Alto Networks acquired cybersecurity startup Demisto

20 February

Palo Alto Networks purchased analytics and automation vendor Demisto for US$560 million to bolster threat prevention and response to security teams.

The platform security giant said the deal will drive better use of AI and machine learning to further automate security operations. The automated playbooks from Demisto have helped reduce alerts that require human review by up to 95 percent, allowing security teams to focus on more complex matters.

Demisto was founded in 2015 as a security orchestration, automation and response (SOAR) player, and employs 166 people. The cybersecurity startup has raised US$69 million in three rounds of outside funding.

Read the full story here.

Google Cloud acquired data migration startup Alooma

20 February

Google made good on its promise to get more "aggressive" in the cloud infrastructure battle against AWS and Microsoft Azure with its acquisition of Alooma, a data migration startup.

The acquisition, the terms of which were not disclosed, opened the door for enterprises to more easily and securely migrate their data to the Google Cloud platform via Alooma’s data pipeline tool. That pipeline helps move data from multiple sources to a single data warehouse, the company said.

Founded in 2013, Alooma has raised US$15 million in three funding rounds from investors including Vintage Investment Partners, Sequoia Capital Israel and Lightseed Venture Partners, according to Crunchbase.

Read the full story here.

Officeworks buys Sydney-based PC repairs and tech support provider Geeks2U

4 March

Officeworks acquired Sydney-based PC repairs and tech support provider Geeks2U.

Geeks2U provides hardware and software repairs, security solutions, wireless and wired networking services, virus and spyware prevention and removal, data backup and recovery solutions for PCs and Macs.

Officeworks managing director Sarah Hunter said the acquisition was part of the office supplies retailer’s strategy to expand its offerings to “better meet customers’ needs” and complement its existing products and services.

Read the full story here.

F5 Networks nips NGINX's channel play in the bud

12 March

F5 Networks acquired web server and load balancer specialist NGINX for US$670m.

The deal came just six weeks after NGINX launched its first ever channel program, which aimed to help NGINX take on market leader F5.

The acquisition therefore takes out F5's potentially most potent competitor and strengthens its position as the dominant load balancer vendor.

Read the full story here.

Deloitte acquired Sydney Splunk partner Converging Data

14 March

Deloitte acquired Sydney-based Splunk partner Converging Data for an undisclosed sum.

The company joined Deloitte’s Risk Advisory practice as part of the deal, with 9 staff coming in and managing director Stuart Hirst taking on the role of risk advisory partner for the professional services firm.

Converging Data specialises in using data analytics for enterprise level risk and operational management, using Splunk to converge IT operations, security orchestration and response, application analytics, cyber security and IoT monitoring.

Read the full story here.

Atlassian acquired planning software provider AgileCraft for $234 million

19 March

Atlassian acquired Texan agile planning software provider AgileCraft for US$166 million (A$234 million).

Founded in 2013, AgileCraft provides enterprise customers a solution to manage a 'master plan' of strategic projects and workstreams, allowing them to map these projects to the distributed work required, as well as provide visibility into bottlenecks, risks and dependencies.

Atlassian said in a statement that many of its biggest customers already use its flagship Jira software alongside AgileCraft to "scale strategic direction and align top to bottom."

Read the full story here.

Complete PC Solutions snaps up fellow Melbourne IT provider ITialise

20 March

Complete PC Solutions acquired the customer base of fellow Melbourne-based IT provider ITialise.

ITialise had worked with Complete PC Solutions since not long after its 2011 founding. When its directors decided to exit the business, they turned to Complete PC Solutions to continue tending to its customers.

The acquisition includes 30 customers, half of which are in the property development industry. No staff were acquired as part of the acquisition, and the ITialise business will be folded into Complete PC Solutions.

Read the full story here.

Versent snaps up fellow AWS partner Contexti

26 March

Versent acquired fellow Sydney-based AWS partner and big data solutions specialist Contexti.

Contexti was founded in 2012 and boasts more than 100 enterprise customers, including Caltex, Seven West Media and SAI Global.

The company bills itself as an 'actionable insights' business, specialising in providing autonomous analytics with machine learning and AI. Its vendor partners include AWS and Microsoft Azure. Versent is no stranger to Amazon itself, having been named AWS' top consulting partner of the year two years in a row.

Read the full story here.

GrowthOps to swallow Brisbane ServiceNow partner Entrago

28 March

IT services conglomerate GrowthOps acquired Brisbane-based ServiceNow partner Entrago.

The company, formally known as Trimantium GrowthOps, has “entered exclusive discussions” to acquire Entrago and its 19 staff.

This was GrowthOps’ second acquisition since going public in March 2018, adding to the eight-firm merger that formed the company in December.

Read the full story here.

Telco 5G Networks acquires Melbourne Data Centre for $5.7 million

2 April

Broadband network operator 5G Networks acquired Melbourne Data Centre for $5.7 million.

The telco said the deal is part of its strategy to expand its infrastructure footprint and improve connectivity between its cloud offering and its broadband network.

5G Networks also expects to save some $3.8 million in data centre expenses while adding $3 million of annualised revenue by acquiring Melbourne Data Centre (MelbDC).

Read the full story here.

Spirit Telecom acquires Brisbane telco LinkOne for $5.7 million

3 April

Spirit Telecom is set to acquire fixed wireless broadband provider LinkOne Networks for $5.7 million, after rejecting a proposed takeover bid from another telco.

The deal will expand the ASX-listed Melbourne telco’s presence and channel partner offering to Sydney and Brisbane, and will also power its new high-speed business-to-business data service.

Spirit previously revealed plans to acquire “a complementary unlisted business” when it rejected an acquisition proposal from Adelaide telco Uniti Wireless.

Read the full story here.

MYOB activist investor Manikay Partners backtracks, approves takeover bid

3 April

MYOB investor Manikay Partners changed tack on a proposed takeover of the software company, agreeing to approve the proposal.

The hedge fund notified MYOB chairman Justin Milne that it will vote for the proposed $2 billion acquisition by investment firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co (KKR), unless a superior offer comes along.

KKR finalised the acquisition on 9 May.

Read the full story here.

Adelaide's Uniti Wireless to acquire junior telco Pivit

15 April

ASX-listed telco Uniti Wireless announced it acquired internet service provider Pivit for $450,000.

Pivit brought some 2000 customers to Uniti’s fibre business.

The deal came after Melbourne-based Spirit Telecom rejected Uniti’s acquisition bid earlier this month. Spirit Telecom later acquired Brisbane-based LinkOne Networks.

Read the full story here.

Tesserent acquires Melbourne Splunk partner Rivium for $3.25 million

18 April

Managed security specialist Tesserent acquired enterprise security specialist and Splunk partner Rivium for $3.2 million.

The announcement follows Tesserent’s earlier decision to cancel its plans to acquire Melbourne-based managed services provider Asta Solutions as it looks to focus on security.

Rivium, which has offices in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Canberra, adds a Security Information Event Management (SIEM) to Tesserent’s cybersecurity offerings.

Read the full story here.

UC vendors Mitel, Avaya to merge: report

29 April

Unified-Communications-as-a-Service leader Mitel reportedly is looking to court Avaya in an all-stock merger valued at between US$2.2 billion and US$2.4 billion, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The reported deal would value communications equipment and UC software provider Avaya at US$20 to US$22 per share, a premium based on its current stock price of about US$18 per share. If Avaya and Mitel are able to strike a deal, the merger could happen as soon as next month, the report said, citing people familiar with the matter.

Read the full story here.

Fone Dynamics acquired by Adelaide telco Uniti Wireless

1 May

Brisbane-based Fone Dynamics was acquired by Adelaide-based telco Uniti Wireless for up to $8.4 million.

The communications platform-as-a-service company and 2018 CRN Fast50 finalist will also help Uniti expand into Queensland, while co-founder Jordan Grives joins the telco’s executive leadership team.

Fone Dynamics has a proprietary communications platform-as-a-service, focusing on inbound voice and business-grade SMS services.

The deal is expected to be completed on 1 June 2019, subject to regulatory approvals.

Read the full story here.

Melbourne audio-visual integrator Rutledge AV acquired by US-based Diversified

1 May

Melbourne-based Rutledge AV was acquired by US-based system integrator Diversified for an undisclosed sum.

The deal marks Diversified’s entry into Australia and expands its Asia-Pacific presence beyond Japan and South Korea.

Rutledge AV offers audio-visual solutions from its eight Australian offices with 350 staff. It will operate as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Diversified, while Morrice will lead Diversified's Australian expansion.

Read the full story here.

SolarWinds buys Passportal to boost security portfolio

1 May

SolarWinds acquired Canadian password and documentation management firm Passportal in a bid to offer increased security to its MSP customers, said SolarWinds general manager John Pagliuca.

The deal took about two months to put together and was finalised in April, Pagliuca said. The terms were not disclosed.

SolarWinds has 22,000 MSP clients, who employ roughly 200,000 technicians, Pagliuca said. Those technicians have access to more than 600,000 small to medium businesses all over the world with a total of six million end users, so security, Pagliuca said is paramount. The IT documentation product created by Passportal CEO Colin Knox is an excellent complement to SolarWinds’ platform, he said.

Read the full story here.

ACCC rejects TPG-Vodafone's $15 billion merger

8 May

The ACCC knocked back the proposed merger between TPG and Vodafone.

The watchdog was scheduled to announce its ruling on Thursday, but inadvertently published the decision on its mergers register today.

The two telcos announced their intention to merge in August 2018, under a plan that would have created a $15 billion entity and created a combined company capable of more comfortably competing with market leaders Telstra and Optus.

Read the full story here.

Spirit Telecom acquires telco wholesaler Building Connect

9 May

Melbourne-based Spirit Telecom acquired wholesale telecommunications carrier Building Connect for $300,000.

The acquisition expands Spirit’s presence in Sydney with a fixed wireless network covering 31 buildings and business parks, servicing more than 200 business customers.

Building Connect’s network will be integrated with Brisbane-based LinkOne’s Sydney sites. The acquisition will also provide Spirit a physical office and warehouse in Sydney, while also retaining the whole Building Connect team.

Read the full story here.

VMware buys Bitnami, targets cloud and enterprise app stores

16 May

VMware announced it acquired Bitnami for an undisclosed sum.

Bitnami packages enterprise applications to make them easy to deploy in the cloud. The company is relevant to the channel in two ways.

One is that it can be used by MSPs that operate clouds to create click-to-install application catalogues that bring independent clouds closer to the marketplace experiences offered by hyperscale clouds. The other is that Bitnami helps ISVs to package their wares for easier deployment.

Read the full story here.

Arq Group offloads wholesale domain business TPP Wholesale to UK-based CentralNic

20 May

Arq Group sold its wholesale domain business TPP Wholesale to UK-based domain registry CentralNic Group for $24.4 million.

The sale came as the former Melbourne IT looks to shed non-core businesses as it focuses on digital solutions.

The proceeds of the sale will be used to pay down debt and provide balance sheet flexibility.

Read the full story here.

HPE to acquire supercomputer maker Cray

20 May

Hewlett Packard Enterprise unveiled its intent to acquire global supercomputer innovator Cray for approximately US$1.3 billion in a move to take high-performance computing (HPC) to the next level with new solutions such as HPC-as-a-Service through HPE GreenLake.

“Answers to some of society’s most pressing challenges are buried in massive amounts of data,” said HPE President and CEO Antonio Neri in a statement.

“Cray is a global technology leader in supercomputing and shares our deep commitment to innovation. By combining our world-class teams and technology, we will have the opportunity to drive the next generation of high-performance computing and play an important part in advancing the way people live and work.”

Read the full story here.

FireEye acquires security startup Verodin

29 May

FireEye has acquired cybersecurity startup Verodin to help find security effectiveness gaps stemming from equipment misconfiguration, evolving attacker tactics, or changes in the IT environment.

The platform security vendor said its acquisition of Verodin will help measure and test security environments against known and newly-discovered threats to identify risks in security controls before a breach occurs. The deal closed Tuesday, and is valued at approximately US$250 million in cash and stock.

Verodin will be integrated with FireEye Helix's security orchestration capabilities to help customers prioritise and automate continuous improvement of security controls, FireEye said. Verodin offerings will continue to be available on a standalone basis through Verodin resellers, as well as through the global FireEye channel community, the company said.

Read the full story here.

Microsoft partner Modality Systems acquired by UK-based GCI

4 June

One of Microsoft's biggest Skype for Business partners Modality Systems was acquired by UK-based converged ICT services provider GCI.

The deal establishes a local presence for GCI through Modality’s Sydney office, as well as a North American presence through its Seattle office.

Modality Systems was founded in 2007 and landed in Australia in 2014 after a few years of doing business in the country. Justin Norris led the expansion as country manager, a role he held until July 2018, when he returned to work at Modality's headquarters at Hertfordshire, UK.

Read the full story here.

Google to buy Looker in US$2.6 billion blockbuster deal

7 June

Google has struck a deal to acquire business analytics software developer Looker for US$2.6 billion in a blockbuster move to expand the business intelligence offerings of Google Cloud.

Looker, one of the more prominent startups in the business analytics space, develops a platform with business intelligence, data applications and embedded analytics capabilities. The company's platform runs purpose-built applications for marketing and web analytics and the company recently added a sales analytics application to its product portfolio.

Google Cloud already includes a number of big data management and analytics services including the company's BigQuery cloud data warehouse service that competes with Snowflake Computing and Amazon Web Services' Redshift.

Read the full story here.

Cisco to acquire industrial IoT security firm

7 June

Cisco Systems Thursday revealed plans to acquire Sentryo, a French company that specialises in device visibility and security for industrial control system networks. The small but strategic deal will let Cisco offer more visibility and protection over operational technology (OT) endpoints on the network.

Financial terms of the deal are not being disclosed.

Many Internet of Things and most OT devices weren't designed with security in mind, a problem that businesses are running into as they deploy and attempt to scale their IoT use cases. Sentryo’s Industrial IoT/OT offerings help companies, specifically those in the energy, manufacturing, oil and gas, and transportation sectors, have greater visibility into all their connected endpoints and protect against cybersecurity attacks, Cisco said.

Read the full story here.  

Salesforce to buy Tableau for US$15.7 billion

11 June

Salesforce.com has taken a major step to increase its business analytics portfolio with a deal to acquire Tableau Software, one of the leading developers of business intelligence and data visualization software, for a whopping US$15.7 billion (AU$22.5bn).

The two companies announced the deal on Monday and explained it will see Salesforce acquire publicly-held Tableau in an all-stock transaction. Salesforce will exchange 1.103 shares of its common stock, valued at $15.7 billion, for each share of Tableau's Class A and Class B common stock.

Read the full story here.

Wesfarmers bids $230m for e-tailer Catch.com.au

13 June

Kmart and Target could receive a major boost to their e-commerce capabilities as their parent Wesfarmers made a $230 million move for e-tailer Catch.

Wesfarmers said in a financial filing that it will bid Catch Group - owner of catch.com.au - $230 million in cash to acquire the company.

This covers the sale of the marketplace as well as two Victorian fulfilment centres.

Read the full story here.

VMware wants to bring public cloud to the data centre with Avi Networks acquisition

14 June

VMware said it’s looking to bring public cloud experience to the data centre with the planned acquisition of red-hot startup Avi Networks by creating the “industry’s only complete software-defined networking stack” built for the modern multi-cloud era.

Terms of the deal, which is expected to close in VMware’s current fiscal quarter, were not disclosed.

“VMware is committed to making the data center operate as simply and easily as it does in the public cloud, and the addition of Avi Networks to the growing VMware networking and security portfolio will bring us one step closer to this goal,” said Tom Gillis, senior vice president and general manager, Networking and Security, VMware in a statement.

Read the full story here.

Harris Technology buys drone retailer, closes Chinese, Hong Kong joint ventures

14 June

Harris Technology announced plans to acquire Fstop Labs, an online drone accessories supplier, a day after terminating its joint ventures in China and Hong Kong.

Fstop Labs is a US-based online retailer that sells via Amazon, eBay and direct sales from its website, supplying products from popular drone vendors DJI, Mavic and Spark. The company pulled in US$1 million in pre-tax profit in 2018 with the majority of sales coming from the US.

The price tag: Harris will be upwards of $2 million, consisting of $1.2 million in cash and $800,000 in shares, if Fstop Labs hits its target of US$900,000 in accumulated profit over the next four financial quarters.

Read the full story here.