4. Insight Enterprises Acquires Datalink

Head count: 570 employees

Annual sales: $771 million

Purchase price: $258 million

Deal closed: Jan. 6

Insight Enterprises bought Datalink, one of the channel's largest pure-play data center solution providers, to strengthen its data center services offerings around hybrid cloud, converged and hyper-converged infrastructure.

Tempe, Ariz.-based Insight, No. 13 on the CRN SP 500, said its purchase of Eden Prairie, Minn.-based Datalink, No. 45 on the 2016 CRN SP 500, will make the company a force to be reckoned within data center architecture.

Insight CEO Ken Lamneck said in December that he was impressed by Datalink's technical and architectural capabilities around the private cloud, which far exceeded Insight's internal capabilities. As a result of the acquisition, Lamneck said Insight went from having pockets of architecture-focused engineering talent to having hundreds of people with experience in that marketplace.