1. Legacy Vendors Get Out Of The IT Outsourcing Business

Three of the industry's largest vendors announced plans in 2016 to spin off or sell their IT outsourcing practices, essentially undoing acquisitions that occurred less than a decade ago.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise announced in May that it would merge its Enterprise Services segment, No. 3 on the CRN SP 500, with CSC, creating a $26 billion behemoth with 5,000 clients across 70 countries. This essentially rolled back Hewlett-Packard's August 2008 acquisition of EDS.

Xerox announced in January that it would be splitting its legacy document technology and document outsourcing practices from its business process services unit, No. 9 on the CRN SP 500, which will be renamed Conduent. This will largely undo Xerox's $5.6 billion purchase of Affiliated Computer Services (ACS) in February 2010.

And Dell reached a deal in March to sell its Perot Systems IT services business, No. 10 on the CRN SP 500, to Japan-based outsourcing firm NTT Data for nearly $3.1 billion. Dell had announced plans to acquire Perot Systems for $3.9 billion in September 2009.