Today’s announcement that printer and camera manufacturer Konica Minolta bought MSPAlliance member All Covered should probably come as no surprise. Not that we saw the deal coming but All Covered had such a unique business model that there were probably very few likely candidates who could really put their assets and resources to proper use.
All Covered, for many years now, had been on an acquisition buying spree, gobbling up as many VARs, break/fix, and MSP businesses as it could lay its hands on. Now we know why they were doing it. Konica has a ready made channel of onsite computer repair locations from which to sell and service their business line of products. The real question is, who will now fill All Covered’s shoes?
I’m not talking as a MSP, but instead, who will fill their shoes as an acquirer of MSPs? Assume for one second that Konica will not continue the All Covered acquisition trend, who else is there who can (or would want to) take up this torch? The integration of the two entities alone will keep any serious M&A activity to a minimum and it is unclear at this stage whether a company like Konica will want to continue with this business model of expansion through M&A.
More analysis on this topic will be coming shortly but for now I say let’s congratulate All Covered on their deal.