Comms-care acquires Platform to bolster professional services offering to the channel

This significant acquisition follows a stellar year for Comms-care and builds on its overall services strategy to be in line with customer needs and technology advancements. The acquisition enables Comms-care to penetrate deeper into the professional services market as it looks to expand its customer propositions around Microsoft, VMware, Citrix and NetApp technologies.

Ben Davies, Managing Director at Comms-care explains: “Platform is a perfect fit for Comms-care because it already delivers high end professional services in technology areas that our customers have immediate requirements for. We invest substantial time forging close relationships with our customers to ensure our services proposition is aligned with the needs of their business, and the addition of Platform will bolster those relationships further by demonstrating our commitment to both them and the channel as a whole.”

Platform was established in 2002 and has built up a highly respected reputation for delivering a wide range of professional services to many of the UK’s leading VARs. The acquisition will have no impact on the service customers receive but will bring with it the added advantages of a wider support infrastructure that Comms-care can provide as and when required.

Simon Day, Partner Director at Platform comments: “We are very excited to be joining a business of Comms-care’s calibre. It will ensure that all of our existing channel partners will not only continue to receive first class professional services but will also have access to a much wider portfolio of services and infrastructure. Many of our partners are Comms-care’s partners too so it makes sense to join forces and provide all partners with an enriched collaborative services model.”

Comms-care currently supports in excess of 700 channel partners, some of which already use Platform’s professional services. The acquisition will consolidate those partner relationships by delivering a much richer customer experience through enhanced partner services and increased operational capabilities.

Davies adds: “We have seen a huge increase in requests from our partner base to provide more professional services around emerging Microsoft technologies such as Office 365, Lync, Hyper-V, System Centre, as well as Citrix and VMware virtualisation solutions. The business combination with Platform enables us to meet that demand whilst still providing the levels of service our partners have come to expect.”

Comms-care is regarded as the leading channel IT support services company in the UK and with the addition of Platform’s professional services expertise, working alongside its existing managed and IT services offering, puts the business in a very strong position to continue delivering class leading IT services to the channel for many years to come.

As part of the business combination Platform’s original board members of Sean Armstrong, Andrew Mansfield and Nigel Roberts will all remain within the business and continue to drive forward their relevant technology streams. In addition, Platform’s Partner Director, Simon Day will take a seat on the Comms-care Board as Professional Services Director and will be responsible for all Platform related business.

Comms-care is in advanced stages of identifying other opportunities that will add further capability to its expanding services portfolio.