Farewell to Digica (well, its brand, anyway)

(By Anthony Miller – Tuesday, 3rd March 2009 9:45am). After two years under Computacenter’s wings, mid-market managed services business Digica is to finally take on its parent company’s core brand. I just spoke to Mark Howling, who was Digica’s CEO when Computacenter acquired the firm in Jan. ’07 and is now in charge of all of Computacenter’s UK services and solutions business. Howling was brought into Digica in 2002 by private equity firm Bridgepoint, a year after its MBO from CSI (the software group, not the US police forensic team) faltered.

Digica’s first six months with Computacenter were a bit hairy, mainly because it had taken on a number of new contracts in emerging technologies such as SANs and VMware for which it didn’t have sufficient skills. But by H207 Digica was back on an even keel, and in 2008 its operations were integrated with Computacenter’s own managed services unit, though the Digica brand remained intact. The rebranding closes the chapter.

I understand that 2008 was a good year for the (ex-)Digica business and I’m sure we’ll hear more when Computacenter reports its FY08 results next week.