IT Weapons Makes First Ever Acquisition, Bolsters SMB Chops

MSP IT Weapons has made its first acquisition in 15 years, aiming to obtain the desktop management capabilities it needs to enter the small business market.

The Brampton, Ontario-based company, No. 495 on the CRN Solution Provider 500, said its purchase of Collins IT Services, also based in Brampton, will allow IT Weapons to both deepen its relationship with existing midmarket customers and open the door to attracting more SMB customers.

"We saw an opportunity and synergy with a longtime friend," said Jeremy MacBean, director of business development for IT Weapons. "It was a joyful accident for us."

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The acquisition closed last week, MacBean said, and Collins IT has already relocated to IT Weapons' offices. He declined to disclose the number of employees or annual revenue for Collins.

IT Weapons executives and Neal Collins -- who founded Collins IT in 2002 -- have been acquaintances for years, MacBean said, getting to know each other through ConnectWise's partner community and peer groups they both served on.

"Joining forces with IT Weapons means our clients are getting access to a whole new world of service and expertise," Collins said in a statement. "I couldn’t be more thrilled."

Collins' desktop offerings will complement IT Weapons' focus on back-end infrastructure such as data centers, applications and virtual desktop infrastructure, he said. IT Weapons was founded in 2000 and offers hosting, managed security and Hardware-as-a-Service.

"We have spent the last 15 years perfecting the design and management of back-end infrastructure; focused on data center, cloud and network systems," Ted Garner, CEO of IT Weapons, said in a statement. "Bringing Collins IT into our arsenal enhances our ability to go the last mile and provide a full end-to-end solution portfolio."

By extending from the data center to the desktop, MacBean said, IT Weapons will be better equipped to serve businesses with fewer than 200 employees, though the company has no immediate plans to pursue small businesses. Most IT Weapons clients today have 200 to 2,000 workers, he said.

Plus, the appetite for desktop solutions among IT Weapons' existing midmarket and small-enterprise customer base has been growing with each passing year, MacBean said.

Both IT Weapons and Collins IT are vertical-agnostic, MacBean said, aligning their offerings around company size rather than industry demographic.

MacBean emphasized that the deal with Collins was a "happy coincidence" and that IT Weapons was in no way on the hunt for companies to acquire. IT Weapons has no plans to seek out any additional mergers or acquisitions, he said.

PUBLISHED APRIL 13, 2015