6. Should IBM Buy SoftLayer or Rackspace?
Talkin' Cloud closely tracked rumors that IBM was going to buy SoftLayer in early 2013. But by March 2013, we raised the big question: Would buying SoftLayer or Rackspace make more sense? IBM ultimately answered the question by purchasing SoftLayer in June 2013.
What it means today: IBM has bet its entire cloud strategy on SoftLayer, killing the IBM SmartCloud initiative to put SoftLayer front-and-center. Among the reasons: SoftLayer has a strong channel partner program and really understands cloud workload automation services.
Talkin' Cloud closely tracked rumors that IBM was going to buy SoftLayer in early 2013. But by March 2013, we raised the big question: Would buying SoftLayer or Rackspace make more sense? IBM ultimately answered the question by purchasing SoftLayer in June 2013.
What it means today: IBM has bet its entire cloud strategy on SoftLayer, killing the IBM SmartCloud initiative to put SoftLayer front-and-center. Among the reasons: SoftLayer has a strong channel partner program and really understands cloud workload automation services.
