Storage consultant GlassHouse Technologies announced July 11 that it will acquire RapidApp, a Chicago-based company that provides infrastructure services and support for enterprise and midmarket companies.
The move will allow GlassHouse to offer more server and storage virtualization, virtual desktop infrastructure, and application deployment services and consulting to its enterprise customers, according to a statement from the Framingham, Mass., company.
On July 11, IDC released a report that predicts the field of virtualization services will grow from $5.5 billion in 2006 to $11.7 billion in 2011 as more companies deploy virtualization throughout data centers and the technology becomes more mainstream.
The largest growth areas for virtualization services during the five years, according to IDCs analysis, are consulting services and systems integration.
Financial details of GlassHouses acquisition were not disclosed. However, executives said that the RapidApp business will be integrated into GlassHouses existing organization, which will bring its total number of employees to 450 worldwide.
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“Our clients have increasingly asked us to use the same process and approach we use in their storage and backup environments to help optimize their server environments, and this acquisition fulfills that customer need,” said Mark Shirman, president and CEO of GlassHouse, wrote in a statement after the acquisition was announced.
In 2004, GlassHouse expanded its global reach by buying two U.K.-based storage solution providers—Source Consulting and Sagitta Performance Systems.
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