IBM intends to significantly bolster its cloud capabilities by ploughing $1.2bn into the expansion of its global data centre footprint this year. Back in June 2013 the company bought Dallas-based public cloud firm, SoftLayer for $2bn (see Salesforce and IBM: $4bn on cloud acquisitions in one day). The new investment will underpin an aggressive addition to this capability and will see IBM add 13 more data centres to its global footprint (taking the total number to 40).
There’s no sitting on the fence here; IBM wants to ensure that Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google and Microsoft do not totally corner the market for enterprise public cloud. Furthermore, that market opportunity is not just amongst IBM’s traditional (and large) infrastructure services customer base. Internet-based businesses, in online retail, media and gaming for example, are critical drivers of public cloud growth. Their use of Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) is growing rapidly, and so too is the number of additional startups coming into the market.
Other IT services firms have steered away from building their own highly scaled IaaS platforms, opting instead to partner with the likes of AWS to deliver such services to clients. Capgemini, for example, is focusing on developing its orchestration capabilities to help customers manage multiple cloud environments through one so-called pane of glass. Others, such as HP, tend not to push IaaS as a standalone offering, but rather as one element across a range of cloud and on-premise (i.e. traditional outsourcing) capabilities.
The investment news follows last week’s announcement that IBM will spend $1bn to create a new division for its Watson super computer. IBM will set up three new cloud-delivered Watson services – all of which are designed to underpin Big Data analytics in the enterprise. SoftLayer and the new yet-to-go-live data centres will undoubtedly be central to the delivery of these.