The decision by Bytes will give it a large presence in the North of England as well as pushing its own revenues to around the £400m mark. For the year to October 31 2016, Phoenix had sales of £118.4m, up from £114.6m a year earlier.
Phoenix has been operating out of York for the past 27 years and will give the largely Southern Bytes a springboard to increase revenues in that area.
“The acquisition comes at an opportune time for Bytes UK as it looks to expand much further into the public sector, from where Phoenix derives a significant percentage of its revenue," said Neil Murphy, Group MD, Bytes UK.
"This now makes Bytes UK Microsoft’s largest UK partner, whilst also opening the door to relationships with other global vendors such as EMC and Dell and deepening relationships with VMWare, Checkpoint, Citrix, Mimecast and Sophos to name a few," he added.
Sam Mudd, Phoenix Software managing director, said that the combination of the two firms would benefit both its staff and customers.
“This is extremely positive news and our announcement has come at the right time for our company and staff, in terms of navigating the fast-changing world of IT in which we operate and the channel consolidation that is taking place. We see plenty of synergies and are excited about working with new complementary offerings, and taking our joint businesses forward with ambitious growth plans across all our vertical sectors," he said.