Once again, we have expanded our reach through acquisition. The purchase of Ideate’s Autodesk manufacturing software business (press release) is our seventh major acquisition since 2001, about the time that reseller consolidation in the Autodesk reseller channel began.

We’re happy to grow the ordinary way, through increasing penetration in existing markets, which we do, but the acquisition route is much faster and produces immediate results. So both internal and external growth have been important to our success. We have grown over 30% per year for the past five years, since the manufacturing recession ended in 2003. As a result our sales this year are expected to be five times what they were five years ago.

In connection with the Ideate transaction, we are opening our 18th office in America, this one in Sacramento, California (see New Office in Sacramento). We now have six offices in California, and 12 in Mid-America.

One major difference in our growth strategy is that our acquisitions have been performed without the dirty tricks (such as not paying the seller, hiring away their employees, or abruptly terminating the principals after the acquisition) practiced by some other resellers in acquisition mode.  The good people who have worked with and transferred their businesses to us have done so, in part, because we manage our business in a professional and honorable way. Most of all, we actually care about their customers and put their interests first.

So we welcome the new customers of Ideate, and promise to do our best to help them increase productivity through the tools we provide. And we expect to be friends with them throughout this process and for many years to come.