WWT To Buy Softchoice In $1.25B Blockbuster: Here's What To Know

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Published Jan 3, 2025

Hello, and welcome back. In this edition, we take a look at World Wide Technology's planned acquisition of Softchoice, the 10 biggest tech news stories of 2024, how solution providers are preparing for the AI agent era, and more.

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WWT To Buy Softchoice In $1.25B Blockbuster: Here's What To Know

Jim Kavanaugh, CEO of World Wide Technology, smiles at the camera. He is wearing a navy blue suit and a light blue button-down shirt. This is the same image as the featured image in this edition of CRN Weekly. — Jim Kavanaugh, CEO of World Wide Technology.

World Wide Technology is planning to make what would arguably be the biggest acquisition in its history with the purchase of fellow channel powerhouse Softchoice for $1.25 billion to boost WWT's AI ambitions and SMB customer base across North America.

Here's what you need to know about the deal.

The 10 Biggest News Stories Of 2024

A bearded man holds a tablet in his left hand and scrolls a news site with a stylus in his right. He is wearing a gray sweatshirt with a hood and sits at a table with a cup of black coffee in a white mug on a white saucer.

Our annual list of top news stories includes the ongoing AI wave that's remaking the IT industry, the impact of several multibillion-dollar acquisitions, the contrasting fortunes of two of the industry's leading semiconductor companies and what was likely the biggest IT system failure ever.

These are the 10 biggest channel-focused tech news stories of 2024.

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AI Solution Providers Prepare For The Agent Era

A hand holds a smartphone so that its screen is facing up, with white and blue glowing symbols that represent AI emanating from the screen. The symbols include gears, networking spheres, clouds, computers, charts and light bulbs.

Grant Davies, principal of digital strategy at Perficient, told CRN that customers can hardly believe it when he demonstrates artificial intelligence agents "talking to each other"—that is, one agent generates content and one or more agents help improve the content.

Perficient is among the camp of solution providers ready to bring customers into the agentic phase of generative AI while exploring ways to leverage the technology internally to improve operations.

Here's what Davies and other solution provider executives had to say about preparing for the AI agent era.

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Bill Hentschell

The acquisition aligns with World Wide Technology's strategy to deepen its AI capabilities. By acquiring Softchoice, a partner with strong AWS connections, they're positioning themselves to better serve SMBs throughout North America. The sheer scale of this deal suggests a strong commitment to expanding their influence in the AI landscape—potentially setting new standards for tech mergers in the future. But I wonder, how will this affect the competitive dynamics within the market for AI solutions?