Converged ICT services provider GCI has announced the acquisition of Modality Systems, the world's largest dedicated Microsoft communications and collaboration services specialist with operations in the UK, USA, Asia and Australia.
The first step in GCI's plan to drive global presence, the move enables the business to expand internationally for the first time and capitalise on the growing global market for its Microsoft-based, cloud-enabled intelligent communications.
The acquisition also provides the opportunity for GCI to "broaden and sharpen" its services offering - thanks to the enhanced features, deeper management capability and improved ease-of-use that Modality Systems software offers.
The company also provides a suite of video conferencing services, including full-service video room management, video bridging and web consultation offerings, integrated into the Microsoft collaboration suite.
Combined with GCI's UC offerings, this will ultimately help customers gain the "very best experience" from collaboration tools such as Microsoft Teams and Office 365, the firm said.
"The acquisition of Modality Systems provides GCI and its customers with established scale and support internationally," said Adrian Thirkill, CEO of GCI. "Geographically, it expands the ability of the combined companies to service larger, global companies and additionally widens key new markets in the USA, Australia and Asia where Modality has already established sales and delivery capability for enterprise customers".
The Modality business will be run within the GCI group, with the combined business looking to dominate the global managed service market using Microsoft's intelligent communications software.
"Both GCI and Modality have invested heavily in innovating around Microsoft's collaboration suite and our combined global customers will benefit from a leading managed service company which is at the forefront of digital transformation," commented Modality CEO James Rodd.
"We believe there is great potential given that Microsoft Teams alone is set to become the second-biggest workplace collaboration app by 2020, surpassing both Slack and Google Hangouts".
GCI also confirmed it is investing in datacentre modernisation services, powered by Microsoft's Azure public cloud to support the hosting and transformation of customers' applications.
