CompuCom Systems Inc. is a technology managed services provider and product reseller headquartered in Indian Land, South Carolina, a southern suburb of

Charlotte, North Carolina Charlotte ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Located in the Piedmont region, it is the county seat of Mecklenburg County. The population was 874,579 at the 2020 census, making Charlotte the 16th-most populo ...

. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Variant Equity Advisors. In business since 1987, CompuCom provides Managed Workplace Services including IT solutions and hardware and software resale, integration and support services and has numerous partnerships within the technology space such as HP, IBM,

Cisco Cisco Systems, Inc., commonly known as Cisco, is an American-based multinational digital communications technology conglomerate corporation headquartered in San Jose, California. Cisco develops, manufactures, and sells networking hardware, ...

Dell Dell is an American based technology company. It develops, sells, repairs, and supports computers and related products and services. Dell is owned by its parent company, Dell Technologies. Dell sells personal computers (PCs), servers, data ...

Apple, Inc Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, United States. Apple is the largest technology company by revenue (totaling in 2021) and, as of June 2022, is the world's biggest company ...

Jamf Pro Jamf is a software company best known for developing Jamf Pro (formerly The Casper Suite), a mobile device management system. History Minneapolis-based Jamf Software was founded in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, by Zach Halmstad, Christopher Thon and ...

, AirWatch, and

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...

Corporate history

CompuCom was formed in 1987 by Safeguard Scientifics, a venture capital company. It was started when predecessor Machine Vision International acquired two computer-focused technology companies, Tri-Star Data Systems and Office Automation, under the umbrella of

Safeguard Scientifics Warren Van Dyke "Pete" Musser (December 15, 1926 – November 25, 2019) was the chairman of the Musser Group. He was the founder of Safeguard Scientifics, a venture capital firm that invested in technology companies. At the peak of the dot-com b ...

, which named the merged company CompuCom. Under the majority ownership of Safeguard Scientifics, CompuCom became a public company in 1987. Also that year, it acquired the CompuShop retail store chain from Bell Atlantic, and moved into its Dallas headquarters. James W. Dixon, president of CompuShop was appointed CEO of CompuCom and served from 1987 to 1996 and became chairman of the board on leaving Safeguard Scientifics held majority ownership of CompuCom until 2004, building it into a company with $1.5 billion in annual revenues. In December 2000, CompuCom purchased the assets of MicroAge Technology Services, one of the largest divisions of bankrupt parent company

MicroAge MicroAge is an American technology company based in Tempe, Arizona. Founded in 1976. In 2020 MicroAge's chief operating officer, Rob Zack, stepped into the chief executive role. On October 1, 2020, MicroAge announced that it had acquired Semapho ...

. This included all of MicroAge's remaining service network of locations. Safeguard sold CompuCom in 2004 to

Platinum Equity Platinum Equity, LLC is an American private equity investment firm founded by Tom Gores in 1995. The firm focuses on leveraged buyout investments of established companies in the U.S., Europe and Asia. History Platinum Equity was founded in 199 ...

, a private equity investment firm for approximately $128 million who appointed Dixon as CEO. Also that year, CompuCom acquired GE Capital Information Technology Solutions (GE ITS), a subsidiary of

General Electric General Electric Company (GE) is an American multinational conglomerate founded in 1892, and incorporated in New York state and headquartered in Boston. The company operated in sectors including healthcare, aviation, power, renewable energ ...

, to expand its end-user, network and consulting services portfolio. CompuCom then became partners and resellers of

VMware VMware, Inc. is an American cloud computing and virtualization technology company with headquarters in Palo Alto, California. VMware was the first commercially successful company to virtualize the x86 architecture. VMware's desktop software ru ...

, etc. Platinum Equity sold CompuCom in 2007 to

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, a private equity firm spun out of

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. CompuCom acquired the U.S. division of

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in 2008, and in 2009, joined with Getronics and other IT services providers to form the

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, the first-ever global alliance of IT providers. In 2013 CompuCom was sold to

Thomas H. Lee Partners Thomas H. Lee Partners, L.P. is an American private equity firm based in Boston investing in middle market growth companies across financial technology and services, healthcare and technology & business solutions. History Founded in 1974 by ...

, also a private equity firm, for $1.1 billion. In 2015 Dixon retired as CEO and resumed his role as board chairman and was replaced as CEO by Don Doctor who was then replaced by Dan Stone in 2016. The company moved its U.S. headquarters from

Dallas Dallas () is the List of municipalities in Texas, third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of metropolitan statistical areas, fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 ...

to nearby

Plano, Texas Plano ( ) is a city in Collin County, Texas, Collin County and Denton County, Texas, United States. It had a population of 285,494 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. It is a principal city of the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. Hist ...

in 2016. Following the acquisition of the company by Office Depot in November 2017, the company became a wholly owned subsidiary. Stone was replaced by Greg Hoogerland in June 2018 and the company moved to new headquarters in Lancaster County, South Carolina, in early 2018. John M. (Mick) Slattery was named as company president in June 2019.

References

{{reflist Office Depot American companies established in 1987 1987 establishments in North Carolina Companies based in South Carolina Technology companies of the United States 2017 mergers and acquisitions