Media Inquiries:
Maria Schafer
608-661-7848
maria.schafer@inacom.com
Madison, WI – July 20, 2009 – Inacom Information Systems (Inacom) announced today that it has merged with national IT powerhouse Core BTS (Core). The combined organization will employ approximately 350 talented professionals in 10 locations spread among the east coast and Midwest regions.
Inacom, headquartered in Madison, has been locally owned since its inception in with 25 years in the IT industry. Washington DC-based Core BTS is a leader in business technology infrastructure and has maintained consistent growth since 1994.
Don Eckrod, CEO of Core BTS, stated, “We are extremely excited to join forces with Inacom. Inacom has long-standing relationships in the information technology manufacturing community and holds the highest levels of certifications with Cisco, EMC, Microsoft and VMware. Inacom has been a well-known leader in innovative solutions in the Midwest region for many years. They have built a reputation for excellence in network engineering and project management in a significant range of industries and technologies. This acquisition is our largest region in terms of revenue, resulting from the very deep and longstanding relationships that Inacom has developed with its customers.
“This acquisition substantially increases our base of technical talent and enhances the breadth of service offerings for our company overall. Our deeper talent pool will allow us to increase our existing focus in the unified communications and collaboration space, but we are especially excited about Inacom’s current data center practice, leveraging their strength in VMware, Cisco and EMC technologies. This “V,C,E” technology alliance is transitioning how the world thinks about the data center and is the cornerstone for the video architecture of the future. We expect this market to expand significantly over the next few years, and this acquisition further solidifies our position as one of the leading collaboration solutions providers in the country. We also look forward to adding Inacom’s Network Operations Center (NOC) for network management and managed service offerings to our existing Core BTS customer base.”
Frank Albi, President and COO of Inacom, commented, “We are looking forward to becoming part of the Core BTS team. Inacom personnel will benefit from still being part of a privately held organization, and we will have the opportunity to offer an expanded portfolio of solutions including Core’s video and carrier service offerings. These solutions will provide our team with compelling added teleconferencing capabilities for our customer set. Our combined entity will have achieved the highest-level certifications from industry leaders including Cisco Systems, VMware, EMC, Microsoft, Tandberg and Verizon. Inacom Learning, a brand that is well-known and respected nationally in the IT training community, will continue as a wholly owned subsidiary of Core BTS. Core BTS values the Inacom Learning solutions as a key differentiator of our organization and an important value-add to our customers.” Albi will join Core BTS as COO, and his new role will include operational oversight of all ten of Core’s branches.
Eckrod added, “I am looking forward to working with Frank Albi.. Frank and I have gotten to know each other over the last several months, and we have formed a great working relationship. He has extensive experience in the industry and brings a great energy to us as we continue to steer Core BTS toward continued growth in the marketplace. It is rare that two companies come together like this with a similar solutions focus, personnel qualifications and direction. We expect our corporate and operational integration to go very smoothly, and our combined customer base and personnel should benefit significantly from our expanded capabilities.”
Founders Equity Inc., the largest shareholder in Core BTS, provided the equity financing and arranged for the debt financing necessary to enable this transaction. J.D. White, the Managing Member of Founders Equity Inc., commented on the Inacom transaction as follows: “Over the past several months I have met with the Inacom management team and visited with them in Wisconsin and at our offices in New York. I am very impressed with their depth of industry knowledge, relationships with manufacturers and suppliers, and the knowledge of their personnel. We believe that together we will create a more dynamic technology infrastructure company and will strive to accomplish this on a national level.”
About Inacom Information Systems
Inacom Information Systems is an award-winning Wisconsin-based provider of strategic technology solutions for business and education clients throughout Wisconsin and across the country. Inacom approaches each project as an opportunity to provide a customized business solution according to each organization’s needs, thereby providing end-to-end consulting rather than merely product-based transactions. The depth and breadth of Inacom’s talent is unmatched in the industry, with a team of certified experts in the following focus areas: Data Center, Enterprise Architecture, Unified Communications, ITaaS (IT as a Service), and Education/Training.
Founded in 1984, Inacom celebrates its 25th year of IT leadership in 2009 and now boasts over 170 employees who live and work throughout the state of Wisconsin. Inacom holds top tier partnerships with leading global technology manufacturers including Cisco Systems, Microsoft, VMware and EMC. Inacom has consistently been recognized in the VARBusiness 500 List, as one of the top 100 companies in Dane County, and voted the #1 IT Consulting Firm & #1 IT Training Firm by the InBusiness Magazine Executive Register. Inacom is headquartered in Madison, WI, with offices in Green Bay, WI and Milwaukee, WI.
For more information, visit http://www.inacom.com.
About Core BTS
Core BTS, Inc. is a leading business technology infrastructure company providing unified communications and collaboration solutions, datacenter storage and server virtualization technology, network infrastructure, security and compliance services, disaster recovery and business continuance analysis and planning and operational outsourcing. Core serves a wide variety of markets, including education, government and public sector, manufacturing, financial, healthcare and professional services. The Core difference is in bringing clients the expertise, availability, knowledge and talent of more than 350 skilled professionals. Core is headquartered in Indianapolis, IN, with branches in the Midwest and east coast.
For more information, visit http://www.corebts.com.
