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EMC Tangos with Conchango

In an effort to boost its global services business, EMC Corp. has made a bid to buy the London, England-based technology-consulting firm Conchango plc.

The Gold Certified Partner and vendor of storage solutions offered 46 cents per Conchango share for a total transaction of about $84 million. At press time, the sale hadn't formally closed, but Conchango's board of directors unanimously recommended the acquisition and the company said that the majority of its shareholders also supported the deal.

Conchango, also a Gold Certified Partner, develops and delivers custom business applications. Founded in 1991, the firm employs more than 300 consultants; its major clients include British Sky Broadcasting Group plc, Chevron Corp., insurance giant Lloyd's of London, retailer Tesco plc and Virgin Atlantic Airways Ltd., among others.

That pedigree is especially attractive to EMC, which views the investment in the well-established consultancy as a key piece of its larger effort to expand its global infrastructure-consulting services worldwide.

"Conchango and its talented employees have a proven track record of delivering many of the United Kingdom's largest data integration projects using highly scalable tools and methodologies," Howard Elias, president of EMC's Global Services and Resource Management Software Group, said in a press release announcing the deal. By combining Conchango with EMC's existing U.S. Microsoft consulting group, "we will be well-positioned to further expand our joint capabilities to more customers and establish a strong foundation for a growing consultancy practice in the U.K. and throughout Europe."

When the acquisition is complete, Conchango will become the foundation for EMC's European Microsoft consulting practice, a fast-growing group within the storage giant's Consulting & Solutions Integration Services organization. Conchango co-founders Mike Altendorf and Richard Thwaite, who currently serve as Conchango's joint managing directors, will co-lead the new combined practice. EMC's Global Services Division now employs nearly 12,000 consultants and engineers worldwide.

The Conchango purchase is just one in a string of recent EMC acquisitions. In April, the company announced plans to buy San Diego-based storage-media vendor Iomega Corp.; in February, it made an offer for Seattle-based Pi Corp., a privately held developer of software for personal information management.

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