Best Buy Acquires Cloud Provider mindSHIFT

The Geek Squad has a new question: Want some cloud storage with that virus cleanup? Electronics retailer Best Buy has reached an agreement to acquire managed services provider mindSHIFT Technologies for $167 million, the company said today. Best Buy says the deal will help extend its growth in the small and mid-sized business IT services, which is a focus of mindSHIFT's business.

mindSHIFT provides cloud computing and data center services to more than 5,400 clients and 25,000 managed desktops in key markets throughout the United States. The company says it hosts 13,000 managed servers and 2.2 petabytes of storage in distributed data centers across the United States.

Best Buy says it will sell mindSHIFT 's offerings through its retail stores, Geek Squad services and Best Buy For Business operations.

"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," said George Sherman, senior vice president of Best Buy Services. "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."

mindSHIFT will continue to operate under its current name, management team and capabilities, which currently include 500 employees at offices in Boston; Long Island, N.Y.; Minneapolis; Morrisville, N.C.; New York City; Philadelphia and Washington, D.C.