UCG And HelpSystems Make Acquisitions
January 25, 2017 Alex Woodie
A common prediction for the New Year is that we’ll see more mergers and acquisition (M&A) activity in the IBM i marketplace. That refrain struck a truthful note just a week into 2017, with two IBM i vendors, UCG Technologies and HelpSystems, making deals of their own.
UCG Technologies wheeled and dealed to buy E-Safe Technologies, a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-based provider of IT services that counts IBM i as a specialty. Formerly known as Premiere Technologies, E-Safe was founded in 1989, and had more than 250 customers located from Pittsburgh to the Great Lakes area, including a good number of IBM i customers.
E-Safe helped its clients develop computer solutions running on a range of systems, including Windows and Web-based systems. In the IBM i world, E-Safe was a hardware reseller and managed service provider, and also helped clients in the areas of security, high availability/disaster recovery, and backup and recovery.
UCG, which is based near Cleveland, Ohio, says the acquisition will accelerate its growth in the Midwest, and help the firm as it transitions from being a regional systems integrator into a full-service provider of backup, DR, security, and enterprise software with a focus on the IBM Power Systems platform.
“We have long been impressed by E-Safe’s (Premier) strength in the Pittsburgh market for Power8 solutions,” says Jim Kandrac, founder and CEO of UCG Technologies, in a press release. “Frankly, they owned the Pittsburgh market. This acquisition not only opens the door to hundreds of accounts, but gives those customers access to a broader range of software and services. It’s a win for us, a win for E-safe, and a win for their customers.”
UCG now has customers in 31 states, Canada, the Caribbean and Europe, the company says.
Meanwhile, up in Minnesota, HelpSystems has put another feather in its cap by completing its 16th acquisition. The latest player to join HelpSystems’ roster is TeamQuest, a provider of performance management and capacity planning tools that worked with a range of servers, including IBM i servers.
The last time we covered TeamQuest, way back in 2004, the company had just put the final touches on a new release of its Performance Software, which was the first tool to support the entire eServer line. (Remember those?) The company, which was spun off from mainframe maker Unisys back in 1991, could deliver capacity planning, performance prediction, and what-if analysis–all with the same tool.
With its acquisition of TeamQuest, which actually was announced in December 2016, HelpSystems adds the company’s performance management and capacity planning tools to the Robot line and is calling it “IT service optimization.”
“Moving from reactive to proactive IT management is a major initiative for organizations today,” HelpSystems CEO Chris Heim says in a press release. “By bringing TeamQuest into the family, we enrich the company with a remarkable amount of expertise and great products to help organizations make sure their IT environment is stepping up today and tomorrow.”
TeamQuest is based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and has offices down the road in Clear Lake, Iowa, as well as over in Gothenburg, Sweden, so the company should be a shoe in to fit with HelpSystems, culturally and geographically speaking (Minnesota’s heavy Norwegian influence notwithstanding).
Other IBM i software vendors joining the HelpSystems juggernaut in 2016 include Tango/04 Computing Group, Linoma Software, and Bugbusters Software Engineering.
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