Leading Solutions buys up BCA IT

Services outfit Leading Solutions has acquired BCA IT for an undisclosed sum.

BCA IT has its origins in retail store, trading in the 1980s as ComputerLand Melbourne. It later changed its name to Business Computers of Australia and expanded its IT services Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Perth.

Frank Colli (pictured, left), managing director at Leading Solutions, said following the acquisition, effective 27th November, Leading Solutions expected to have a combined revenue of around $180 million during 2007 and a doubling of staff to 220.

BCA IT's two equal shareholders and directors, Stephen Harrington and Andrew Carter, will work with Leading Solutions on a consultancy basis to help complete the transition, which will extend into 2007.

Colli said BCA IT's strength was in medium to large corporations, the education and federal government sectors.

“Given also that our software portfolio is geared around SMEs and mid market corporates, this ties in really well with BCA IT’s client base," he said.

Colli said BCA, an IBM, Cisco and VMWare partner, also had a repair network of 100 locations around Australia servicing IBM, HP, Toshiba, Lexmark and Dell equipment.

Leading Solutions is one of Hewlett-Packard's largest resellers in Australia and in recent years added Acer and Toshiba to its hardware offering.

In 2003, it acquired Scala Business Systems (an Epicor partner) allowing it to provide the full range of iScala ERP products and services.

Other software services include custom development and seven vertical market software products, obtained through its acquisition of Micro Knox in 2004. More recently, Leading has added Microsoft Dynamics to its ERP and CRM business unit.

bca it frank colli hardware leading solutions lilia guan