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Avanade Acquires Ascentium's Microsoft Dynamics CRM Practice

By Rajani Baburajan
TMCnet Contributor

Avanade, a business technology service provider, announced it has completed the acquisition of the Microsoft (News - Alert) Dynamics CRM assets of Ascentium Corporation and its wholly owned subsidiary, Ascentium Federal.

With this acquisition Avanade becomes one of the leading dedicated providers of services for Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

As the part of the acquisition approximately 90 Ascentium CRM professionals joined Avanade. Most of them are located in Baltimore, Md., and Bellevue, Wash.

In April, Avanade announcedits intent to acquire the CRM assets of Ascentium. The exact terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

"This acquisition supports our business strategy to maintain Microsoft market leadership so our customers can realize the best results from the Microsoft platform," Adam Warby, CEO of Avanade, said.

"We now have the most comprehensive set of Dynamics CRM expertise, assets and solutions available to help our customers build deeper, longer term profitable business relationships," Warby added.

This acquisition is aimed to bring together Avanade's strong technology capabilities, global reach and Dynamics CRM expertise with Ascentium's dedicated Dynamics CRM team and deep specialization, company officials said.

Avanade offers its customers more deployment options, scalable systems and broad skill sets in CRM solutions.

"When Ascentium made the decision to refocus the company, we began to look for a home for our Dynamics CRM practice that would mirror our commitment to our customers and our people," Mark Barrett, CEO, Ascentium CRM practice, said. "We found both in Avanade."

"Avanade is known for its expertise in Microsoft technologies; it also has a long record of focusing on its customers and investing in its people," Barrett added.

 The acquisition also expands Avanade's portfolio of industry specific solution offerings and delivery options.

Avanade recently launched Avanade Online Services "AOS", its software-as-a-services or "SaaS (News - Alert)" offering for Microsoft enterprise solutions.  AOS offers customers the choice to realize benefits from Dynamics CRM delivered onsite or as SaaS.

"The decision to acquire the assets of Ascentium's CRM practice is a result of a strategic and deliberate look at how we can grow our business in ways that provide maximum value to our enterprise customers," Aziz Virani, executive vice president, Global Technologies & Solutions, Avanade, said.

According to Virani, expanding the company's CRM reach will allow them to bring the benefit of Dynamics CRM to more companies around the world, on-premise or as a service.