'Super VAR' Sparxent Expands Services Range With Cemaphore Acquisition
July 27, 2009 3:41 PM ET
Solution provider Sparxent will disclose Tuesday that it has acquired Cemaphore Systems, a developer of e-mail synchronization technology, in the company's latest step in its ambitious plans to become a "super VAR."
The acquisition of Cemaphore, San Mateo, Calif., will help Sparxent expand the range of e-mail- and Microsoft Exchange-related services it offers. The value of the acquisition was not disclosed.
Salt Lake City-based Sparxent provides IT hardware, software and consulting services for midmarket customers with of 500 to 5,000 employees. The company resells products from such vendors as CA, Cisco, EMC, Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft, combining them with its own technologies and services to assemble solutions in such areas as systems management and help desk services.
Sparxent was formed last year when the startup acquired NetworkD, a Newport Beach, Calif.-based solution provider. More recently the company acquired Arbyte Group, an IT services company based in Moscow, Russia, and XAware, a data integration company based in Colorado Springs, Colo.
Many VARs today have gotten away from the original role of being a trusted advisor to their customers and become instead just an extension to their vendor's sales force, said Sparxent co-founder Dave Taylor, re-iterating his company's business model.
"The current VAR model has run its course," he said. "We don't see too many resellers out there who don't do anything more than further the agenda of the one vendor they're tied to."
As described at the time of the company's launch, Sparxent's goal is to provide mid-size businesses with the range of services that Accenture and IBM Global Services offer for large companies.
Cemaphore's core technology, MailShadow, synchronizes messages across mailboxes in multiple locations in real time. In addition to allowing people to work with disparate mail systems, the technology can be used for e-mail backup and recovery tasks, synchronizing e-mails between Microsoft Exchange and Exchange Online, and for migrating stored e-mails during system upgrades.
Tyrone Pike, CEO of Cemaphore, continues to oversee the Cemaphore operation after the acquisition and also has taken on the roles of CTO and chief strategy officer for Sparxent.
|
Five Companies That Dropped The Ball This Week For the week ending Feb. 10, CRN looks at five companies that were either asleep at the wheel or just didn't make good decisions. |
|
Five Companies That Came To Win This Week For the week ending Feb. 10, CRN looks at five companies that brought their 'A' game and made moves to beat out competitors |
|
10 Challenges That HP Wants Partners To Tackle Right Now CRN speaks with HP's business unit chiefs to get a sense of where they'd like partners to focus in the coming year, as well as how CEO Meg Whitman is making a difference. |
 More
Slide Shows |
