Today’s topics include T-Mobile rolling out an inexpensive help desk for small businesses, and Thoma Bravo acquiring Veracode from Broadcom for $950 million.
T-Mobile has begun a new service for business customers with T-Mobile One voice service called the T-Mobile for Business Help Desk to help small businesses with IT support. The service is starting out small, limiting accounts to companies with 12 or fewer voice lines on T-Mobile for $40 per month.
The reason behind the new service is because, according to T-Mobile, 81 percent of businesses this small or smaller don’t have any IT support at all.
The help desk service provides access to trained tech support staff based in the United States seven days a week from 8:00 a.m. to midnight ET. The staff can help with most routine business problems, including help with configuration and installation and dealing with unexpected errors including problems with antivirus software.
The staff will also provide help with using most business software, with updating the software, with error messages and with resolution of errors.
On Nov. 5, private equity firm Thoma Bravo announced that it is acquiring application security firm Veracode for $950 million from Broadcom, which on Nov. 5 closed its $18.9 billion acquisition of CA.
The $950 million price tag is a 55 percent gain over the $614 million that CA Technologies paid to acquire Veracode in March 2017.
According to Sam King, senior vice president and general manager of Veracode, “The market for [application security] is growing rapidly. … At an advantageous time like this, it is of great benefit to Veracode to once again become an independent AppSec pure-play company. This combined with the expertise and experience that Thoma Bravo has in cybersecurity gives us the ability to accelerate our growth and product innovation, while continuing to nurture the unique culture we always valued.”