Best Buy to Acquire Cloud-Services Provider mindSHIFT

In an effort to shift away from the highly competitive electronics retail market, Best Buy is working to build a larger footprint in business IT technology services.

The company has recognized its potential in the cloud services arena and announced Monday that it agreed to acquire mindSHIFT Technologies, a managed services provider that offers cloud, IT, data center and other services to small- and mid-sized businesses.

The acquisition won’t bring huge changes to mindSHIFT, as it will continue to operate under its current name and management team, but Best Buy is hoping that it can expand its IT growth with mindSHIFT’s network of 5,400 clients and 25,000 managed desktops nationwide.

“There’s no question that acquiring the skills, capabilities and clients of mindSHIFT has the potential to help expand Best Buy’s global services capabilities in the vast small and mid-sized business market,” Best Buy Services Senior VP George Sherman said in a statement. “As important, the mindSHIFT team will bring added experience, talent and resources to the remote support capability we have been building within our multi-channel tech service unit Geek Squad.”

The acquisition of Geek Squad and development of Best Buy for Business have proven to be lucrative for the Minnesota-based chain and it said that by joining forces with mindSHIFT, it will gain significant competitive advantage.