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Telstra has acquired Sydney-based professional and managed services provider, VMtech, in a bid to bolster the telco’s strategy to accelerate the growth of its network applications and services business in Australia and further afield.
Virtual Machine Technology (VMtech), a major Australia IT services provider, has made a name for itself in the local market thanks to its expertise in the delivery and management of enterprise-grade hybrid cloud, connectivity and security solutions.
It should be noted that VMtech was among the big winners revealed on the eve of theTelstra Vantage 2017 partner event in September, taking home the telco's enterprise partner of the year award.
Telstra’s executive director of Business Technology Services (BTS), Christopher Smith, said VMtech’s end-to-end approach to designing and managing secure hybrid cloud solutions complements the existing suite of technology consulting services Telstra offers across public cloud, networks, security and applications.
Specifically, Smith said that the acquisition of VMtech will enhance Telstra's hybrid cloud capabilities and address a critical customer need: support for the design, implementation, optimisation and management of secure hybrid cloud solutions.
“As organisations digitise their business they are increasingly moving from a basic cloud-first model to best-fit solutions that often involve a secure hybrid cloud approach,” Smith said.
“As a result, customers are looking to us to provide hybrid solutions for their network, security and cloud infrastructure, as well as support with defining, architecting, implementing and managing these solutions," he said.
According to Smith, the cloud services markets in Australia and Asia are growing rapidly and the telco expects to see this growth continue as more organisations adopt hybrid cloud solutions.
"This presents a huge opportunity for Telstra," he said. “Telstra’s multi-cloud strategy is to provide customers with integrated hybrid cloud solutions and managed services through unified platforms across cloud and on-premise infrastructure and applications, with our Telstra Programmable Network providing scalable connectivity to customers’ cloud environments."
Established in 2009, with its headquarters in Sydney, VMtech claims around 75 employees and provides services to local business and government customers, such as Coca-Cola, Komatsu, ME Bank, Mission Australia and Sydney’s Inner West Council.
The company’s co-founder and CEO, Len Findlay, said the strength of Telstra’s network and security capabilities combined with his company’s secure hybrid cloud approach would create “exciting” growth opportunities.
“We have partnered with Telstra since 2013 to deliver our innovative solutions to customers in New South Wales and Victoria,” Findlay said. “Our values and commitment to delivering best-fit customer solutions are strongly aligned.
“We’re excited to be joining Telstra and helping to take our secure hybrid cloud capabilities, combined with Telstra’s leading network and security services, to a broader market – both domestic and international. Our team is very much looking forward to the tremendous opportunity ahead,” he said.
For Telstra, the acquisition represents a major boost to its IT and cloud services consulting prowess, a factor that will see the telco increase its tailored solutions capabilities.
“We have one of Australia’s largest teams of ICT services professionals who manage projects from single domain integrations to complex transformation projects across multiple technologies, industries and geographies,” Smith said.
The acquisition comes off the back of a string of similar moves by Telstra to buy up the talent and technology it needs to build out it business services offering and ramp up its cloud capabilities. This includes the acquisitions of companies such as Kloud, Readify and MSC Mobility.
“We’re committed to expanding this capability internationally and our acquisition of UK-based technology services business Company85 in June was part of this strategy,” Smith said.
“The expertise from VMtech complements our vision to be a world class technology company and we look forward to working in partnership with the VMtech team to deliver our combined expertise to more customers in Australia, with a view to scaling these capabilities in Asia,” he said.
