SCIENCE

IBM has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Platform Computing, a privately-held company based in Toronto that will help advance IBM's cloud computing strategy.  Platform Computing has more than 2,000 clients, including 23 of the top 30 largest global enterprises and names such as Citigroup, Infineon, Pratt & Whitney, Red Bull Racing, Sanger Institute, Harvard  Medical School and the University of Tokyo.

Cloud computing is one of four major IBM growth plays (which also include Smarter Planet, business analytics and emerging markets) and they forecast over $7 billion in revenue by 2015. Platform Computing's software, which specializes in cluster and grid management software for distributed supercomputing environments, is already the foundational element of many enterprise cloud computing environments. Coincidentally, IBM tomorrow will unveil new cloud services and technology to offer enterprises unprecedented choice, security and portability in moving key enterprise business processes into cloud environments.  

According to a major new IBM survey of business and technology leaders, more than sixty percent of enterprises revealed plans to adopt cloud computing business models in order to move beyond the operational effectiveness benefits of cloud and significantly enhance their ability to address Big Data, collaboration capacity and the mobile device explosion. The study indicates a fundamental shift in the competitive business landscape and the possibilities of cloud computing as a new platform for enterprises to create and deliver value to customers.

The acquisition is anticipated to close in the fourth quarter of 2011, subject to the satisfaction of closing conditions. Financial terms were not disclosed. 

The combined opportunity for servers, storage and systems software for technical supercomputing is over $14 billion in 2011 and is expected to grow over 8 percent annually to $18.5 billion by 2014, according to IDC.     

“IBM considers the acquisition of Platform Computing to be a strategic element for the transformation of HPC into the high growth segment of technical computing and an important part of our smarter computing strategy,” said Helene Armitage, general manager, IBM Systems Software. “This acquisition can be leveraged across IBM as we enhance our IBM offerings and solutions, providing clients with technology that helps draw insights to fuel critical business decisions or breakthrough science.”

“Platform Computing’s software has a proven track record over the past 19 years of helping clients to accelerate innovation, business analytics and IT services while being easy to deploy and manage,” said Dr. Songnian Zhou, CEO, Platform Computing. “Our market-leading software has enabled broad adoption of commodity clusters and enterprise grids around the world. This acquisition will enable Platform Computing to better serve our customers by leveraging the IBM solution portfolio and extend the reach of our pioneering distributed computing software for broader enterprise adoption.” 

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