Vendor lineage
Dimension Data - integration at continental scale
A systems integrator that grew out of one region and was absorbed into a Japanese carrier.
Dimension Data built a large network integration and managed services business, and its arc is the one this timeline keeps recording from different starting points: an integrator grows past the region that produced it, becomes attractive to a carrier that wants delivery capability, and is acquired.
The pattern is worth naming because it explains why so few large independent integrators exist. Integration is a people business with thin margins and deep customer relationships, which is exactly what a carrier or a manufacturer wants to own - and the integrator's value to an acquirer is highest at the moment its independence is most useful to its customers.
This is the same shape as Network1 into ScanSource and Westcon into Synnex elsewhere on this timeline, at a different scale and on a different continent.