Avanade Announces Intent To Acquire Azaleos Corporation
Acquisition of Azaleos Expands Avanade’s Leadership Position in Managed Services for Microsoft Communication and Collaboration Technologies
Avanade, a global business technology solutions and managed services provider, today announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Azaleos Corporation, headquartered in Seattle. Azaleos is a leading provider of remotely managed services for Microsoft® Exchange, SharePoint® and Lync®, using advanced software to remotely monitor and manage email, collaboration, and unified communications systems. As part of the acquisition, all of Azaleos’ approximately 200 employees will be offered an opportunity to continue to support the Azaleos business at Avanade. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
Research from several industry analyst firms indicates strong growth for Microsoft Exchange and SharePoint over the next several years in both public and private cloud delivery models. At the same time there is significant and growing demand for managed services by organizations that require a dedicated infrastructure, high availability for critical business systems and functionality similar to that found in on-premises solutions. For many compliance-conscious enterprise customers, Azaleos provides the right combination of service quality with security and control.
Adam Warby, Avanade CEO, said, “Azaleos’ unique technology provides customers with the functionality and familiarity of Microsoft technology delivered in a way that provides more control at a lower cost, while offering enterprise service levels above the industry average. Avanade’s global reach will allow our multi-national customers to realise results from Azaleos’ advanced technology and services platform. After closing, Azaleos and Avanade will work together with our customers to explore new managed services offerings of additional Microsoft technologies.”
Azaleos’ predictive analytics helps companies optimise performance and ensure consistently reliable uptime of email, collaboration and unified communications systems. Enterprises using Azaleos’ services can typically save between 15 and 20 percent over traditional outsourcing or hosted offerings while also achieving high quality service levels. Additionally, as BYOD compels CIOs to incorporate increased enterprise mobility strategies into their business, Azaleos offers companies mobile device management services.
“Our rapid growth since we started in 2004 is attributed to our outstanding customer service and the business benefits our technology delivers for customers such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Mediq, BECU and Chiquita,” said Phil Van Etten, Azaleos CEO. “Our specialised focus in Microsoft collaboration and communications means we can help our customers ensure their systems stay up and running smoothly – in many cases more effectively and more cheaply than managing these systems themselves. To capture more of the market opportunity faster, we believe Avanade’s global leadership in Microsoft services and our shared passion to help customers succeed made them the right partner for us.”
In 2011, Azaleos Corporation was ranked in the top 30 of Deloitte’s Technology Fast 500™, which recognises the 500 fastest growing technology, media, telecommunications, life sciences and clean technology companies in North America. The company’s growth reflects an increasing preference among organisations to delegate management and maintenance responsibility for their infrastructure including messaging, collaboration and unified communications systems to third party experts.
The acquisition is subject to closing conditions, including receipt of required regulatory approvals and is expected to close within 30 days.
