ThinkGrid's acquisition by Colt strengthens its platform capabilities for the indirect channel

Mercer Island, WA (September 28, 2012) - ThinkGrid, one of the world's first cloud platform vendors for the channel has been acquired by Colt Technology Services, the information delivery platform for European business. ThinkGrid enables channel partners to become successful cloud providers in their own right by offering them a comprehensive portfolio of cloud-based services with a turn-key management platform and the commercial and technical training required to grow their cloud business. The acquisition brings added resources and increased cross-selling opportunities for ThinkGrid's 300 resellers approximately worldwide.

ThinkGrid's success has been in building innovative cloud solutions that allow partners and customers the flexibility to design, build and launch business services that solve specific problems. ThinkGrid's flagship product, the Hosted Virtual Desktop (DaaS), a fully isolated virtual machine, is the most advanced and secure solution on the market. It allows users to install any application, fully customize their experience, offering the tightest integration of existing cloud and on-premise computing. Complementing the Hosted Virtual Desktop solution is the HVDI Management suite, an innovative tool that enables IT administrators or Managed Service Providers (MSPs) to take control of important management tasks in the cloud for their Hosted Virtual Desktop infrastructure. ThinkGrid also offer through their platform, Virtual Servers (IaaS), Unified Communications, Backup and Storage from the cloud.

Currently ThinkGrid is present in 3 tier SSAE6 Certified regional US datacentres; allowing partners to quickly and securely deploy services locally to their customers and know where their data is at all times. The acquisition will aid ThinkGrid in providing more local support to its channel through a comprehensive commercial and technical training programme; better market development funding through extensive business consulting and opportunity support; and also new innovations to the platform with increased software development resources, allowing channel partners to quickly provision and deploy custom public and private solutions to the SME market.

Rob Lovell, CEO of ThinkGrid comments; "Becoming part of Colt Technology Services supports ThinkGrid's vision to become the world's leading cloud services enablement platform for the channel, offering great product and market development opportunities. ThinkGrid will gain access to extended research and development and support resources that will further strengthen the innovation ThinkGrid has brought to the market in terms of both services and service delivery options. We will further build on our three-fold proposition: Services, Platform and Enablement, in an effort to ensure our channel partners can take on the market opportunity that both public and private cloud solutions have to offer."

François Eloy, Executive Vice President at Colt, explains the value ThinkGrid brings to Colt's business; "The SME market for managed services is set to grow at 15% annually during the coming years. Colt is well positioned to penetrate this market through our indirect channels. The acquisition of ThinkGrid further strengthens our position with the addition of a complementary range of cloud-based services. We also gain a reseller-oriented management platform and portal which will reduce our time to market".

About ThinkGrid
ThinkGrid is an international enabler of cloud computing that equips IT providers with the tools and help necessary to establish or expand a revenue stream from the cloud. ThinkGrid's three key component offering consists of a state of the art self-service and billing platform, productized cloud services (including Hosted Virtual Desktop, Virtual Server, Unified Communications, and Hosted Email) and above all an enablement and go-to-market program to help partners achieve success. ThinkGrid has a partner ecosystem which encompasses over 300 partners who build and deliver public, private and hybrid cloud services and solutions for over 35,000 users, in different virtual markets and regions.
ThinkGrid has office and datacentre locations in North America, Europe, Ukraine and Australia to support its partner network. For more information please visit: www.thinkgrid.com

About Colt
Colt is the information delivery platform for Europe, enabling its customers to deliver, share, process and store their vital business information securely. An established leader in delivering integrated computing and network services to major organisations, midsized businesses and wholesale customers, Colt operates a 22-country, 43,000km network that includes metropolitan area networks in 39 major European cities with direct fibre connections into 18,000 buildings and 20 Colt data centres (one in development).

In 2010, the Colt Data Centre Services business was launched to deliver innovative high quality modular data centres which are rapid to deploy and power efficient.

In addition to its direct sales capability, Colt has four indirect channels to market; Agent, Franchise, Distributor and Wholesale which includes Carriers, Service Providers, VARs and Voice Resellers.

Colt is listed on the London Stock Exchange (COLT). Information about Colt and its services can be found at www.colt.net.

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