Insight Bolsters App Dev Expertise With BlueMetal Acquisition

Inisght Enterprises, aiming to boost its ability to design business applications, has acquired Boston-based interactive design and technology company BlueMetal.

The terms of the deal were not disclosed, although Insight said it will pay for the acquisition from its cash holdings, which have improved by 40 percent since 2013, from $126.8 million to $175 million at the end of last quarter. According to a statement from Insight, BlueMetal took in $25 million in revenue over the last 12 months.

According to Mike Gaumond, Insight’s senior vice president of services, the company hopes to leverage BlueMetal's software capabilities - specifically for financial services and health care - to help it "move up the value chain and provide a better set of applications."

[Related: Insight Dumps Red Triangle, Unveils New Logo]

"BlueMetal brings incredible depth in big data, mobility and app development," Gaumond said.

With better application development skills from BlueMetal, Insight is looking to provide more robust business and mobile applications for its clients to engage a growing number of millennials in both the workplace and among their customer bases, Gaumond said.

"Analysts expect (that) by 2020, 80 percent of the workforce will be millennials," who have the ability - and expectation - to work from mobile devices with better integrated technologies, Gaumond said.

Insight is a strong Microsoft, Dell, HP, VMWare, Symantec and Cisco partner, having been honored by each company as a partner of the year at least once in the last four years. Gaumond said the company wants to keep BlueMetal's brand intact because of the recognition it, too, has with Microsoft.

"They have a strong brand with their clients as well as with Microsoft, and we want to take advantage of that," he said.

Insight, based in Tempe, Ariz., ranks No. 13 on the CRN Solution Provider 500 list and is No. 493 on the Fortune 500. It employs 5,000 people globally. The company said it will add all of BlueMetal's 100 employees to its services unit.

"We aren't doing this to create synergies," Gaumond said. "We are offering opportunities."

BlueMetal's CEO, Scott Jamison, will join Insight as vice president of services, the company announced.

PUBLISHED OCT. 2, 2015