Printelligent Acquires Managed Print Services Business

For the second time in recent hours, I'm blogging about an acquisition within the managed services market. This time the deal involves Printelligent acquiring DirectPointe's printing and imaging group. The deal is newsworthy for two reasons. On the one hand: Printelligent is increasing its managed print services investments. On the other hand, DirectPointe -- a seasoned MSP -- is exiting managed print services to focus more on Platform as a Service. Here's the update.

According to an official statement, this is the third acquisition Printelligent has made in the past three years. DirectPointe seems to have enjoyed decent managed print momentum, having earned a leadership award from the Managed Print Services Association. Still, the deal with Printelligent effectively ends DirectPointe's managed services practice. "DirectPointe will no longer provide managed print services allowing [the company] to focus on the delivery of core managed IT services," the company stated.

Printelligent did not disclose financial terms for the deal. Nor did the company disclose how many DirectPointe employees (if any) would join Printelligent as part of the DirectPointe printing and imaging group acquisition.

Either way, it seems like the managed print services market remains a narrow but potentially lucrative niche -- attracting only selected MSPs that understand the copier and multi-function printer markets. Some of those MSPs will gather for Photizo Group's Managed Print Services conference in May 2011.

Meanwhile, DirectPointe has been pushing deeper into the Platform as a Service market, preparing a PaaS offering for peer MSPs.

The Printelligent-DirectPointe deal is the second MSP-oriented acquisition in recent hours. Earlier today Fully Managed, a Canadian MSP, said it acquired HIT Business Solutions.

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