Orange Business Services has acquired Basefarm, an MSP and cloud services expert that was named Northern Europe Service Provider of the Year by Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Orange paid 350 million euros -- or roughly US$408 million -- for Basefarm, which also boasts big data and artificial intelligence (AI) expertise.
Basefarm revenue hit more than 100 million euros (US$117 million) in 2017. The company, spanning 550 employees, mainly serves Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands, Austria and in Germany.
Basefarm's sales grew more than 33 percent in 2017 compared to 2016, adding 45 new customers during the period, the company said in May 2018.
Basefarm's managed and cloud services consume considerable storage. The company has increased its capacity from 1 PB to 20 PB over the last four years -- making Basefarm the largest HPE 3PAR user in Western Europe. Moreover, the company is one of only two global partners to beta test HPE’s new Artificial Intelligence software -- HPE InfoSight for HPE 3PAR StoreServ.
Orange Cloud Services Expansion
Orange Business Services, meanwhile, has been growing organically and through M&A. The company earlier acquired Business & Decision, and now boasts 1,600 cloud computing experts. The cloud-oriented piece of the business is growing roughly 15 percent to 20 percent annually. Basefarm deepens the company's expertise in data management, critical applications, big data and multi-cloud services, Orange indicates.
In a prepared statement, Orange Business Services CEO Helmut Reisinger said:
“We are very proud to announce the acquisition of Basefarm, which will mark a major milestone in our international development. In particular, the company’s integration will enable us to significantly extend our Big Data and critical application management services on a rapidly consolidating market. In addition to our ability to offer access to public or private cloud infrastructure, it is above all our capacity to propose enriched, automated services to our customers, wherever they are in the world, that will enable us to support companies as they transform onto new, digital models based on cloud-computing, Big Data and Artificial Intelligence."
The deal is expected to close in Q3 2018. Orange did not disclose how Basefarm will be managed and organized once the deal is completed.