IBM is doubling down on its bet on OpenStack after the company disclosed that it has acquired Blue Box, a developer of managed private-cloud services based on OpenStack technology.
The move comes on the back of Cisco striking a deal to acquire OpenStack specialist Piston Cloud Computing to accelerate its ambitious Intercloud strategy.
IBM did not disclose how much it paid to acquire the privately held company, but it said it would continue to support Blue Box clients while offering them the broader IBM cloud portfolio.
IBM has been pushing hard on its open-cloud initiatives for several years now.
Blue Box provides businesses with a simple private cloud-as-a-Service platform based on OpenStack.
IBM said the addition of Blue Box to its services portfolio strengthens its OpenStack lineup with a remotely managed OpenStack offering.
“IBM is dedicated to helping our clients migrate to the cloud in an open, secure, data rich environment that meets their current and future business needs,” said Jim Comfort, IBM general manager of Cloud Services, in a statement. “The acquisition of Blue Box accelerates IBM’s open cloud strategy, making it easier for our clients to move to data and applications across clouds and adopt hybrid cloud environments.”
“This acquisition signals the beginning of new OpenStack options delivered by IBM,” said Jesse Proudman, Blue Box founder and CTO, in a statement. The combination of IBM and Blue Box, he said, will “arm customers with more efficient development, delivery and lower cost solutions than they’ve seen thus far in the market. Together, we will deliver the technology and products businesses need to give their application developers an agile, responsive infrastructure across public and private clouds.”
