Lexmark Completes Sale, Announces New Strategies

The News and Facts
The leadership at Lexmark began a process to explore “strategic alternatives” for the future of the business back in October of 2015. In April 2016, the company announced it would be sold to a consortium of Chinese investors led by Apex Technology and PAG Asia Capital. Now, on November 29th 2016, Lexmark announced its sale has been completed and decisions have been made regarding the strategic decisions of the company.

While Lexmark’s corporate headquarters will remain in Kentucky, long time President Paul Rooke will no longer be leading the company. Instead David Reeder, former Lexmark VP and CFO, will be the company’s new President and CEO. Lexmark also announced two of their key initiatives going forward. The Enterprise Software group, now undergoing rebranding as Kofax, will be split off and subsequently sold. The Imaging Solutions and Services (hardware) division will now focus on “growing the imaging business, particularly in China and the Asia-Pacific region.”

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HP Inc. Divests Software Assets

On Monday, Open Text announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire most of HP Inc.’s Engage software portfolio for $170 million. However, HP made only the briefest of statements on the sale and the announcement was not even posted on the central HP news webpage.

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InfoTrends at MSPWorld 2016

On April 4, 2016, David Ramos and I presented for the first time at MSPWorld. The three day conference was held in Orlando, and is one of the biannual shows managed by MSPAlliance. MSPAlliance is a MSP trade association founded in 2000 with 25,000 members globally. The conference is marketed as the “only event in the managed services industry brought to you by MSPs, for MSPs. MSPWorld is driven by those that have had actual real-world experiences and successes in the managed services industry AS a managed service provider.” Conference organizers went with the theme of “MSPStrong,” and divided the show into four educational tracks for business, sales and marketing, service operations, and technical.

MSPWorld Sponsors

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The Dell-EMC Deal

The Deal
Though a little sticker-shock—to the order of $67 billion—is certainly in order, we should not be entirely surprised that Dell acquired EMC and its 81% stake in VMware. After all, it was an open secret that EMC was actively seeking buyers after the recent struggles with shareholders, and the failure to conclude a deal with HP. Though the acquisition includes a 60-day ‘go-shop’ provision that allows EMC to seek other bids with minimal penalty, competing bids seem unlikely. Dell has offered a substantial bid, and the number of other companies that would be seriously interested in acquiring EMC’s business is limited. Under the terms of the deal, EMC will go private as part of Dell, and VMware will remain a publically traded company.

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DocuWare Presents its Version 6.7, Partner Awards, and Financials at DocuWorld 2015

DocuWare wrapped up their partner conference, DocuWorld, in Orlando on Thursday. DocuWare reviewed the new capabilities built into their software, financial successes, and target markets areas. The 2015 members of the Diamond Club were announced and received their awards, and some shared their success stories.

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Ricoh and Sharp Announce New Plans to Bring IT Services to the Channel

Ricoh Americas Corporation and Sharp Imaging and Information Company of America (SIICA) announced new additions to their channel programs this week; both targeted to help their dealers provide IT services.  Ricoh’s program named CHAMPS will offer what is being branded as Cloud IT Services, which will be available exclusively for Ricoh Family Group dealer partners in the US. This is made possible through Ricoh’s 2014 acquisition of mindSHIFT. Sharp is going the partnership route by naming Continuum, a channel-only IT platform and services provider, as a Strategic Alliance Member. While not exclusive, this is the first such partnership between an OEM and a company like Continuum in the US.

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Acquisition-Hungry Konica Minolta Continues to Gobble Up Managed Services Companies

Konica Minolta has continued its aggressive acquisitions of managed services providers in the US. In January 2015, the company acquired the assets of Preferred Network Corporation of Atlanta, and in April, the Boston- and California-based EveryNetwork. These come on the heels of 2014 acquisitions of Detroit-based Integrated Data Solutions, Inc. and its sister company RockIT Cloud Solutions, and Southern California-based KnowledgeCentrix.

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Hewlett Packard Delves Deeper Into Networking

A week after it broke that HP Enterprise Services was in talks to acquire Aruba Networks, it became official that a deal would in fact go through. The equity value of the transaction is approximately $3.0 billion, and net value of $2.7 billion. The transaction will close in the second half of fiscal year 2015 barring any unforeseen hurdles. The new organization will be led by Aruba’s Chief Executive Officer Dominic Orr, and Chief Strategy and Technology Officer, Keerti Melkote, reporting to Antonio Neri, leader of HP Enterprise Group.

HP and Aruba’s networking portfolios complement the other extremely well. Aruba’s leading wireless mobility solutions and HP’s strong switch portfolio, will address key market demands. Enterprises need the type of comprehensive, integrated and secure networking solutions capable of faster speeds and access to cloud applications for their increasingly dispersed or remote workforces.

Aruba already had a strong record of innovation and go-to-market performance and combining this HP’s global presence and portfolio will make for leading networking company. The combined company’s revenue will still fall far short of Cisco’s roughly 50% share in the WLAN market. Aruba had become eaten into Cisco’s business, and with HP at its back this trend will continue.

After first quarter networking revenue dropped 11 percent year over year, HP clearly felt compelled to inject some new life into the area. Synergies aside, the acquisition was somewhat of a surprising move (at least when the rumors emerged) because new acquisitions were expected to be around their cloud strategy or pertaining to Big Data. Meg Whitman has reportedly said that HP Enterprise will be on the hunt for acquisitions in 2015 and we expect more to come.

CSA Rebrands Business Services Division, Promises Focus on New Vertical Markets and Strengthened Core

At its Second Anniversary Event, Canon Solutions America (CSA)unveiled the name change of its Business Services Division to Enterprise Managed Services Division (EMS). VP of Enterprise Services and Solutions, John Reilly, and VP of Managed Services, Valerie Belli, gave the presentation detailing the rebranded division.

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HP’s First Major Helion Announcement Since Revealing Split

On October 23^rd, Hewlett-Packard Co. launched the commercial and community version of Helion OpenStack® software along with an integrated trial version of the Cloud Foundry based development environment named Helion Development Platform. This integrated Helion infrastructure as a service (IaaS) and platform as a service (PaaS) represents another step in HP’s efforts to develop its hybrid cloud solutions for enterprises and government.

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