I love waking up in the morning to the sound of competition. It’s what makes us create. It’s what Brian Dunn calls the “Connected World” or “Global Connect” strategy….if you had not heard Best Buy announced on Monday that it has acquired managed service provider mindSHIFT Technologies for $167 million. Brian is Best Buy’s CEO.
Actually this deal is Best Buy sub-story of the day (Best Buy bought out it’s US mobile partner for $1.3 billion on the same date). It is however a story about strategy, and VIP to WHIR readers. From a seed like this, frankly tiny, $167 million acquisition, grows a great cog. It reflects a large global strategy.
Smelling the coffee. Once you have sold a Sony – 55″ Class / LCD / 1080p / 120Hz / HDTV to everyone on the planet where do you go? I step back and smell the coffee. Then I do a bit of M&A math, then I do a bit of operational math. With a fairly low 5,400 clients and 25,000 desktops, mindSHIFT is probably creating about $1,200 per month in revenue per customer, sort of like selling that Sony – 55…to each of your customers EVERY MONTH!. Gosh I like recurring revenue…this really is BIG for Best Buy, one small cog at a time.
Checking mindSHIFT’S website, and more importantly LinkedIn business summary, the company provides this litany of services: managed IT, VoIP, Microsoft, Cisco, VMware, virtualization, managed hosting, hosted Exchange, SaaS, e-business application development, cloud computing, IT management, IT support, Data center services, virtual server, cloud server and hosted desktop.
A soup to nuts glossary of technical gibberish to your local Rotarian, on the whole extremely complex to the average SMB. This keys back to my last blog Complexity – My Theme of 2011. Best Buy through this acquisition (mindSHIFT is great at complexity) see’s its job as making that complex system, well simple.
This is about moving that Geek Squad Guy (in some form or another) from your living-room….to that sea of gray office cubicles strewn across offices around the globe.
Back to Apple. We really want a simple plug and play world. You have to buy it somewhere.
Later – Tom
Find out more about Tom: NCC International – the Hosting Business Broker Twitter: TomNCC and NCC WebHostBusiness
About Tom Millitzer
I am an M&A guy. I sell Hosting Companies. I want you to fulfill your dreams. If you are building your company or exiting for success...I want help you grow rich.
I started NCC International in 1994, we represented our first hosting company in 1997. NCC has completed over 400 assignments. If you are considering buying or selling you need to know me. I do not bite.
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