IBM Buys Nordcloud, Advancing Hybrid Cloud Strategy in Europe

Advancing its new hybrid cloud-first strategy, IBM is buying Nordcloud, a relatively large European business that helps enterprises in the region transform their applications and infrastructure to the modern way of doing these things.

Nordcloud has AWS, Google Cloud Platform, and Microsoft Azure certifications, which it uses to set up enterprise IT infrastructure for cloud-native application development and deployment. Once it becomes part of IBM, it will likely push its clients toward IBM’s solutions for managing their hybrid cloud environments.

At the core of IBM’s hybrid cloud solutions is technology by Red Hat, the open source enterprise infrastructure software giant it acquired two years ago for $34 billion.

Terms of the transaction, announced Monday, were not disclosed. IBM expects the Nordcloud acquisition to close in the first quarter of 2021.

Based in Helsinki, Nordcloud has offices in 10 European countries. IBM described the Finnish company’s mission as helping “businesses become stronger, fitter, and more agile with cloud.”

Handholding enterprises into the era of cloud-native is a booming market. The transition from primarily on-premises data centers to using cloud platforms is complex, and simply “lifting and shifting” existing applications from your own servers to the cloud doesn’t set you up to really leverage the advantages of the cloud.

Related:IBM's Hybrid Cloud Split Boosts Red Hat's Strategic Importance

Enterprises don’t necessarily have (or want to spend) the resources necessary to answer the many questions that need to be answered to make the transition successful. Cloud providers provide some support for these customers, but for the most part, the bulk of the heavy lifting tends to be outsourced to professional service providers like Nordcloud.

Citing Gartner and IDC, IBM said the market for cloud professional services is expected to exceed $200 billion by 2024.