Flotek Group has announced the acquisition of Microshade Business Consultants for an undisclosed sum.
Microshade was established in 1984 and provides secure IT solutions for over 286 parish councils across the UK. The company operates a cloud remote desktop service at the Southwest Data Centre in Plymouth, where Flotek already maintains a regional office.
This acquisition will allow Flotek to provide local IT support and cybersecurity services to parish councils across the country.
Flotek has been collaborating with Microshade to develop its own private application hosting service, helping businesses move traditional on-premises software, such as accounting software like Sage, Iris, and Pegasus, to a private cloud environment, thereby eliminating the need for on-site servers. Microshade is also a Microsoft Cloud Partner.
The Microshade team will form a new cloud infrastructure team at Flotek, continuing to deliver specialist cloud technology utilising existing data centre relationships and security positions. Microshade will be fully integrated into Flotek over the next 12 months.
Jay Ball, CEO, Flotek Group, said, “We’ve had the pleasure of working with the Microshade team for over three years, collaborating on various projects. During the acquisition process, Stuart Wilbur, the founder, sadly passed away. Stuart’s vision was to bring advanced technology to the parish council sector, a vision we wholeheartedly share and are committed to continuing.
“We see tremendous growth potential in hosting our customers' existing server-based applications in our private data centre technology. This complements our existing Microsoft Azure technology offering, as both solutions have their unique advantages in the market.”
David Astwood was technical director at Microshade. He will now be head of infrastructure at Flotek Group. Astwood commented, “We've worked with the Flotek team for a number of years on joint projects and have enjoyed collaborating on a private cloud offering. We look forward to focusing on growth across the parish councils.”
This acquisition comes in response to growing demand from customers for Flotek to offer private application hosting. Flotek previously acquired Gower Business Systems, a Pegasus reseller.
Flotek was advised by Siobhan Williams, senior associate solicitor at Darwin Gray.