INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Rackspace today announced that it has acquired RelationEdge, a Salesforce implementation partner and digital agency
The companies did not disclose the financial details of the acquisition.At first, this may sound like an odd acquisition
Rackspace is still best known for its hosting and managed cloud and infrastructure services, after all, and RelationEdge is all about
helping businesses manage their Salesforce SaaS implementations
The company clearly wants to expand its portfolio, though, and add managed services for SaaS applications to its lineup
It made the first step in this direction with the acquisition of TriCore last year, another company in the enterprise application management
Today’s acquisition builds upon this theme.Gerard Brossard, the executive VP and general manager of Rackspace Application Services, told
me that the company is still in the early days of its application management practice, but that it’s seeing good momentum as it’s
gaining both new customers thanks to these offerings and as existing customers look to Rackspace for managing more than their infrastructure
“This allows us to jump into that SaaS management practice, starting with the leaders in the market,” he told me.Why sell RelationEdge,
a company that has gained some good traction and now has about 125 employees “At the end of the day, we’ve accomplished a tremendous
amount organically with very little funding,” RelationEdge founder and CEO Matt Stoyka told me
“But there is a huge opportunity in the space that we can take advantage of
But to do that, we needed more than was available to us, but we needed to find the right home for our people and our company.” He also
noted that the two companies seem to have a similar culture and mission, which focuses more on the business outcomes than the technology
itself.For the time being, the RelationEdge brand will remain and Rackspace plans to run the business “with considerable independence
under its current leadership.” Brossard noted that the reason for this is RelationEdge’s existing brand recognition.
