Avnet Technology Solutions has swallowed IBM middleware reseller and consultancy Ascendant Technology (Atech) for an undisclosed sum.

Atech – which has offices in North America, Europe, Brazil and India – has several IBM Lotus awards but also makes software tools including apps for e-commerce, enterprise portal and collaboration, web content management and infrastructure automation.

"Avnet's acquisition of Ascendant Technology is expected to accelerate our global solutions distribution model," said Phil Gallagher, global president, Avnet Technology Solutions.

He said the consultancy and application developer boosts push to build services and software skills "to drive growth for our suppliers and value-added resellers".

"Because of Ascendant's international footprint, Avnet's ability to identify new services and solution business opportunities for our partners will greatly expand," said Gallagher.

The firm was founded in 2003 and had a turnover of $90m in 2011. It has proprietary software - Insight Driven Engineering Approach (IDEA) - which Avnet said will boost its own cloud-based Solutions Path architecture with software application integration.

This is the second acquisition of an end-user biz Avnet has made this year after snapping up asset disposal specialist Canvas Systems, which has units based in the US, UK and the Netherlands. ®