IBM has been busy this fall announcing the intent of acquiring / the acquisition of three companies.
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So let’s go backwards in time for the last three IBM acquisitions:
MyPOV – An interesting move by IBM. Normally a cloud provider like what IBM is with SoftLayer – wants to drive all load to its own cloud. IBM Global Services will now though have a tool to help / show customers where cloud platform wise to move to and where to run loads on, including AWS. That gives chops to IBM services, but may take away business from other IBM products, e.g. SoftLayer. One can argue that SoftLayer needs to be price competitive regardless to win the customer’s favor in these sourcing decision, but it makes an e.g. IaaS as a loos leader for further services and products up the stack harder to achieve. Still an interesting move, which makes the IBM cloud offerings more multi-faceted than one would have expected.
MyPOV – IBM has been in the business of signing content partnership with a variety of content sources in the recent past, e.g. also with Twitter. That IBM would also acquire a content source, like in this case The Weather Company comes as a surprising move to me, as traditionally there has been a separation between software and data vendors. Neither vendor category has successfully played on the other turf in the history of enterprise software, so I am not particularly optimistic here – as I struggle to see why it would be different in 2015 than in the past. But then there are IP assets that are valuable for IBM and its customers, such as algorithms, platform know how that make sense to be acquired. And then it is another use case for the cognitive powers of Watson, so on the software IP side this acquisition may turn out to make a lot of sense. I am curious (and skeptical) on how the monetization of the data side may pan out.
MyPOV – A good move by IBM, that had to beef up storage capabilities of SoftLayer, Cleversafe brings much more IP, as well as a number of blue chip customers using the vendor for advanced storage use cases. It is good to see that IBM also finds value for its on premises offerings as well as the plan that IBM will keep selling Cleversafe for on premises deployments.
Find more coverage on the Constellation Research website here and checkout my magazine on Flipboard and my YouTube channel here.
So let’s go backwards in time for the last three IBM acquisitions:
IBM and Gravitant
IBM is planning to acquire Gravitant, a 2004 founded, Austin based vendor of cloud brokerage services and plans to give it a home with Global Services. Gravitant helps enterprises to broker services across on premise and cloud resources, including load balancing inside respective supported clouds. IBM was clear that the immediate focus is on choice and sourcing and not on real time arbitrage. |
| IBM and Gravitant (from briefing deck) |
MyPOV – An interesting move by IBM. Normally a cloud provider like what IBM is with SoftLayer – wants to drive all load to its own cloud. IBM Global Services will now though have a tool to help / show customers where cloud platform wise to move to and where to run loads on, including AWS. That gives chops to IBM services, but may take away business from other IBM products, e.g. SoftLayer. One can argue that SoftLayer needs to be price competitive regardless to win the customer’s favor in these sourcing decision, but it makes an e.g. IaaS as a loos leader for further services and products up the stack harder to achieve. Still an interesting move, which makes the IBM cloud offerings more multi-faceted than one would have expected.
IBM and The Weather Company
In a surprise move IBM announced the intent to acquire The Weather Company last week. IBM plans to use data, services, algorithms and platform know how of the weather company to complement analytics, cognitive (via Watson) and IoT capabilities. IBM sees large potential in linking business information of customers with weather data and creates a business unit for Watson that is focused on IOT. |
| IBM and The Weather Company (from briefing deck) |
MyPOV – IBM has been in the business of signing content partnership with a variety of content sources in the recent past, e.g. also with Twitter. That IBM would also acquire a content source, like in this case The Weather Company comes as a surprising move to me, as traditionally there has been a separation between software and data vendors. Neither vendor category has successfully played on the other turf in the history of enterprise software, so I am not particularly optimistic here – as I struggle to see why it would be different in 2015 than in the past. But then there are IP assets that are valuable for IBM and its customers, such as algorithms, platform know how that make sense to be acquired. And then it is another use case for the cognitive powers of Watson, so on the software IP side this acquisition may turn out to make a lot of sense. I am curious (and skeptical) on how the monetization of the data side may pan out.
IBM and Cleversafe
Early October IBM announced the intention to acquire Cleversafe, another 2004 founded company with interesting storage IP and products, that will complement IBM Storage as well as SoftLayer object storage and overall storage capabilities. And Cleversafe’s on premises products will be kept sold. |
| IBM and Gravitant (from briefing deck) |
MyPOV – A good move by IBM, that had to beef up storage capabilities of SoftLayer, Cleversafe brings much more IP, as well as a number of blue chip customers using the vendor for advanced storage use cases. It is good to see that IBM also finds value for its on premises offerings as well as the plan that IBM will keep selling Cleversafe for on premises deployments.
- News Analysis - IBM launches Industry's First Consulting Practice Dedicated to Cognitive Business - a good move it's early times - read more
- News Analysis - IBM plans to acquire Cleversafe to propel Object Storage into the Hybrid Cloud >> a good move. Read here
Market Move - IBM acquires StrongLoop - nodejs comes to BlueMix - read here - News Analysis - IBM and ARM Collaborate to Accelerate Delivery of Internet of Things - The IBM NextGenApps Stack emerges - read here
- Progress Report - IBM Cloud makes good progress - but needs to attract more load - read here
- Market Move - IBM gets into private cloud (services) with Blue Box acqusition - read here
- Event Report - IBM InterConnect - IBM makes bets for the hybrid cloud - read here
- First Take - IBM InterConnect Day #1 Keynote - BlueMix, SoftLayer and Watson - read here
- News Analysis - IBM had a very good year in the cloud - 2015 will be key - read here
- Event Report - IBM Insight 2014 - Is it all coming together for IBM in 2015? Or not?
- First Take - Top 3 Takeaways from IBM Insight Day 1 Keynote - read here
- IBM and SAP partner for cloud - good move - read here
- Event Report - IBM Enterprise - A lot of value for existing customers, but can IBM attract net new customers? Read here
- Progress Report - The Mainframe is alive and kicking - but there is more in IBM STG - read here
- News Analysis - IBM and Intel partner to make the cloud more secure - read here
- Progress Report - IBM BigData an Analytics have a lot of potential - time to show it - read here
- Event Report - What a difference a year makes - and off to a good start - read here
- First Take - 3 Key Takeaways from IBM's Impact Conference - Day 1 Keynote - read here
- Another week and another Billion - this week it's a BlueMix Paas - read here
- First take - IBM makes Connection - introduces the TalentSuite at IBM Connect - read here
- IBM kicks of cloud data center race in 2014 - read here
- First Take - IBM Software Group's Analyst Insights - read here
- Are we witnessing one of the largest cloud moves - so far? Read here
- Why IBM acquired Softlayer - read here
Find more coverage on the Constellation Research website here and checkout my magazine on Flipboard and my YouTube channel here.