All Covered Strengthens Desktop Virtualization Play With Covisia Acquisition

Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Covisia was formed in 2008 following the merger of two Boston-area solution providers, Deva Systems Group and Aegis Associates. The combined company has around 50 employees and has been a Citrix Platinum Solutions Provider Partner since 1999 with more than 1,000 Citrix installations under its belt.

Bill Fistori, founder of Deva Systems Group and president of Covisia, said desktop virtualization has become a major growth driver as more SMBs consolidate their IT environments and embrace mobility and bring-your-own-device trends.

"We've seen a lot of desktop virtualization interest from health-care clients and even professional services businesses like law firms. It's a differentiator because we don't see most SMBs doing this," Fistori said. "In our mind, desktop virtualization is the way all companies should be constructing their IT environments today."

All Covered, a division of Konica Minolta Business Solutions, had discussed a possible acquisition with Covisia for a couple of years, but Fistori said he wasn't interested in selling until the end of last year.

Todd Croteau, president of All Covered, said the company was very interested in not only Covisia's managed services and virtualization skills but also its cloud capabilities.

"It positions us well for what we think will be rapid adoption for desktop virtualization," Croteau said. "Plus, one of the things we like about Bill's company was many of their clients were cloud-ready -- they still had a lot of IT infrastructure on premise but they also had virtualized and consolidated IT environments, which made them ready to move to the cloud."

In addition to its strong virtualization expertise, Covisia expands All Covered's presence in New England. With the acquisition, All Covered is nearing 600 employees and its Boston operation is now "bigger than 99 percent of MSPs worldwide," Croteau said.

Covisia is the latest purchase for All Covered, an acquisition streak that has spanned two years and several regional MSPs across the country. All Covered acquired Service Assurance, a Memphis-based MSP specializing in off-site backup and remote management, last month. Covisia was All Covered's second acquisition in 2012 alone and the seventh in the last 12 months.

Croteau said more acquisitions are coming this spring. In the past, All Covered focused on finding strong regional MSPs in smaller, underserved regions. But this year, the company will be taking a new approach, Croteau said, looking for MSPs in larger markets where parent company Konica Minolta Business Solutions has a strong presence.