Cloud News: IBM, CA, Logicalis, HP, Microsoft

Here’s a roundup of some of this week’s headlines from the cloud computing sector:

IBM to acquire DemandTec.  IBM and DemandTec (DMAN) announced that the two companies have entered into a definitive merger agreement for IBM to acquire DemandTec in an all cash transaction at a price of $13.20 per share, or about $440 million. DemandTec will bring cloud-based analytics software to IBM's Smarter Commerce initiative and add cloud-based price, promotion, and other merchandising and marketing analytics. IBM estimates the market opportunity for Smarter Commerce at $20 billion in software alone. “DemandTec has unprecedented capability to improve customers’ price and promotion tactics on a stand-alone basis and connect retailers and manufacturers for collaborative planning through the cloud,” said Dan Fishback, President and Chief Executive Officer of DemandTec. “IBM Smarter Commerce is the perfect fit for DemandTec. IBM is the only provider of price and promotion offerings within a rich solution set that supports companies’ buy, market, sell and service processes.”

Logicalis UK selects CA. CA Technologies (CA) announced that Logicalis UK is bolstering its private cloud offerings with CA Automation Suite for Clouds. The CA suite will complement the existing Logicalis portfolio of cloud solutions and help its customers optimize resource utilization and reduce costs through dynamic orchestration and workload management to automate the entire cloud service workflow and lifecycle. “Private clouds have moved beyond virtualisation and our customers want to leverage private cloud as a single platform for consistent ICT service delivery," said Chris Gabriel, marketing director at Logicalis UK. "After reviewing the market for a robust private cloud solution, Logicalis UK chose CA Automation Suite for Clouds to feature as part of our cloud service and solution offerings.   CA Technologies expertise in developing and supporting cloud environments helps us to help our customers to take maximum advantage, architecturally and operationally, of this new approach to IT service delivery.”

HP and Microsoft partner for global communications cloud solution.  HP (HPQ) and Microsoft (MSFT) announced a global, four-year initiative to deliver Microsoft's communications and collaboration applications via global private and public cloud services. Under the agreement, HP and Microsoft will offer private and public cloud solutions including private cloud applications from both companies, public cloud services like Office 365 from Microsoft and hybrid solutions that combine public and enterprise cloud services. “Microsoft is committed to putting the unique and ever-evolving needs of customers at the core of cloud innovation," said Mark Hill, vice president, Enterprise Partner Group, Microsoft. “This alliance with HP not only broadens Microsoft’s geographic reach, it gives customers maximum flexibility to choose a cloud computing solution that meets their organization’s specialized messaging and collaboration needs.”