Siemens takes a 15% stake and a board seat in Atos Origin-- a rare France-Germany deal that creates Europe's 2nd-largest IT services group (after IBM). 

The German engineering giant's loss-making SIS unit will now be part of the French IT services group. 

Through the €850m deal, Siemens will off load one its two problem units (the other is NSN, its telecoms JV with Nokia.)Siemens currently prefers to concentrate on the  healthcare, energy and industrial sectors. 

Among other IT activities, Atos Origin provides Read more...

OECD's Information Technology Outlook 2010 says the IT industry grows by 3-4% in 2010, following its 6% decline in 2009.

Growth will exceed 4% in 2011, but it probably won't return to pre-crisis growth levels. 

Government and business spending in OECD member countries will remain weak, with new hardware and software investments unlikely in the short-term. 

Firms tended to cut IT costs during the economic downturn. The report says during the recovery more strategic activities have been maintained or increased. Companies now focus on consolidation and Read more...

Bell Micro will distribute and support a wide range of Minicom DS products, services and solutions and will specialize in providing end-to-end Digital Signage solutions to its European sales channels.

Bell Micro made a strategic decision to enter the growing Digital Signage market over 3 years ago. In order to strengthen its portfolio, Bell Micro contracted alliances with various Digital Signage industry vendors such as screens, players and software vendors. Bell Micro is now able to offer a complete Digital Signage solution complemented by Read more...

In an all-cash merger for an equity value of about $252 million and a transaction value of nearly $594 million, Avnet takes over Don Bell's Bell Micro.

Don (shown in photo from our interview several years ago) founded his company in 1988. Bell now has sales of  $3+ billion and 1900 employees.

The company, which operates both a distribution and single tier reseller business, offers a portfolio of storage, computing, software and networking products for broadcast, AV and IT industries. In 2009, the single tier business represented Read more...