COA takeover will help our channel says Version One
The surprise £100m takeover of the parent company of document management vendor VersionOne is positive news for the channel, claims Julian Buck, general manager of Version One. “Being part of a larger technology group can only be good for us – there is no conflict of interest in the short term and day to day, its business as usual.”
In early February, Advanced Computer Software Plc acquired Redac Holdings Ltd, owner of COA Solutions, from Alchemy Partners for a total consideration of £100m. COA has supplied software solutions to the public and private sectors for more than 25 years, with in excess of 5,000 direct and indirect customers in healthcare, public and emergency services and the private sector.
Aggressive
COA Solutions Ltd, formerly CedarOpenAccounts, has been an aggressive acquirer itself over the last few years. Alongside its Version One acquisition two years ago, COA has bought HR Systems Specialist ASR Computers Ltd, Business Intelligence vendor BI Inform, Inca Planning Software and eProcurement Specialist Belmin.
Even though COA was a direct organisation, Buck states that VersionOne was always pretty autonomous and had grown it channel extensively over the last years to include over 100 partners. With ACS, the strategy he believes will continue and sights new offices recently opened in South Africa and America as a clear sign of its commitment.
New owners, Advanced Computer Software Plc, is a provider of software and IT services to the primary care sector. Through its subsidiary Adastra, ACS services circa 95 percent of Out-of-Hours operational hubs and 50 percent of NHS walk-in clinics in England. Adastra’s software interoperates with more than 100 other IT systems serving both the primary care and the acute parts of the NHS.
