RapidScale Acquires Vonage VoIP Division

Earlier this week, RapidScale announced that it has a deal in place to acquire a significant part of Vonage. As a part of the deal, RapidShare will gain full control of the Infrastructure as a Service, Hosted Exchange, Virtual Desktop, IT Services, Hosted Firewall, Backup Service and Microsoft Skype for Business services which were all previously owned and operated by Vonage. The deal dramatically expands the amount of business offerings that RapidShare will be able to provide and makes it a major player in the world of business technology services.

Another key aspect of the deal is the fact that it allows RapidShare to expand its footprint to both coasts. In the past, RapidShare was a regional technology company that was mainly focused on the West Coast. However, with the acquisition of a large part of Vonage, it will gain a presence on the East Coast as well. The company will open an office in Tyson, Virginia, and will be able to add more of an East Coast focus to its product offerings.

“IT teams of all sizes today are looking for a partnership focused on best-in-class managed cloud services, delivered on a global cloud platform, with managed and hybrid support,” said Randy Jeter, the CEO of RapidScale. “Additionally, I see an increasing need for advanced self-service capabilities, reporting, compliance, security and automation, which all help streamline IT. I am excited to address these growing needs for the customers we are acquiring and to provide them with a great cloud experience.”

The old saying has always been, “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.” In the tech world, that sentiment may be expanded to include that if expanding a company cannot be done alone, the best move may be to acquire another company that already has expertise. That is exactly what has happened with RapidShare and Vonage. This was a smart strategic move by RapidShare to gain a suite of products that it was not able to offer before while also expanding its presence to become a truly national company.