Why cStor Joined MicroAge

By Larry Gentry, Executive Vice President, cStor and MicroAge

On July 15th, cStor announced it was being acquired by MicroAge. After 20 years of being in business, continued success, and steady growth, many people have asked why we decided to become part of the MicroAge organization.

cStor has been growing and continually changing our business model to meet the needs of our clients. Several years ago, we launched a cybersecurity practice due to the needs of our clients, and it has grown much faster than our traditional data center infrastructure business – although that has continued to grow as well. While all this has been great, there have been changing needs of our clients that we have not been able to adequately meet.

MicroAge was looking to expand and grow their cybersecurity practice, which cStor had in place, and cStor was looking to add skills around Microsoft MSP and cloud migrations. This seemed like a good fit from that point. When we looked at client overlap, there were only 19 joint clients that we were both servicing. Of those, there was only one that we sold the same thing to! It was amazing there was no cannibalization of each other’s business; it was truly just going to add value to each organization and its clients. We were both excited about the growth opportunities for the combined organization and the expertise each team brought to the table. So, we decided to see if we could converge and grow faster together.

The cStor organization will stay in place as a division of MicroAge that is focused on our traditional solutions. We are taking cybersecurity to all National division clients of MicroAge, and we are taking Microsoft MSP and cloud migration services to the cStor client base.

In my career, I have been part of several acquisitions as both the acquirer and the acquiree. Seldom has there been a fit as well as this for both our clients and our associates. The cultures of both organizations are similar and fit well. There is almost no overlap in our businesses as we come together. This is a growth acquisition where we need more people to fuel the growth, not less, which is exciting for our associates.

I’m excited and energized every day to get to work on the next level of growth for all the clients of MicroAge, both for the National and the cStor division, so we can bring our combined capabilities to what our clients need today!