14 DAY TRIAL // Following a long-term collaboration between the two companies, IBM announced its imminent acquisition of BLADE Network Technologies in a joint press release.
With a portfolio including more than half of the Fortune 500 list, BLADE will provide all the right tools for IBM to competitively go against Cisco, Dell and HP in the business networking sector.
BLADE's top of the line switches and data routing technologies will add to a recently updated IBM networking product portfolio, allowing the company to go after clients which were until recently unapproachable.
"BLADE will help IBM better integrate networks with its systems, optimizing them for workloads that require high-speed and low-latency performance such as cloud computing and business analytics. For example, faster data transport enables faster decisions important for analytics workloads," said Brian Truskowski, General Manager, IBM System Storage and Networking.
"BLADE will increase IBM's System Networking development, sales, support, skills and awareness and help IBM build smarter systems that are optimized for client requirements."
In the past 18 months, IBM has been adding new names, technologies and client portfolios to its belt in a series of moves which lets experts believe its more than serious about its networking sector.
This is IBM's fourteenth acquisition this year alone, the headliner in a list which includes names Storwize and BigFix.
With the Internet expanding in a constant trend since its birth 41 years ago, data center money are a sure thing in today's unsure economic environment.
As Tony Bradley from Yahoo News pointed out “Servers, storage, and networking are the three pillars that form the foundation of the data center,“ IBM having appealing products in every category sure gives them a high chance of success in winning future data center contracts.
Viewed in the big picture, this acquisition is a response to HP's acquisition of 3Com and Cisco's decision to launch a new line of blade servers.
Universally regarded as the best blade server manufacturer, BLADE Network Technologies was an ideal target for IBM to keep pace with its main rivals.
Financial details about the deal weren't disclosed, but the acquisition is expected to be finalized until the end of the 2010 4th quarter.