IBM executives say the company plans to spend $20 billion on acquisitions over the next five years. IBM projects that the software business will represent almost half of its profits by 2015.
On Aug. 30, 2010, IBM announced the close of its acquisition of Storwize. Storwize will become part of IBM Systems and Software Group. The Storwize technology helps organizations improve storage efficiency while lowering the cost of making primary data available for analytics and other applications.
Integrating Storwize’s Random Access Compression Engine (RACE) with the IBM storage solutions portfolio will help IBM to offer a range of affordable solutions for clients to analyze massive amounts of data in order to realize new insights and business outcomes. The RACE technology complements other storage efficiency offerings such as de-duplication, according to IBM.
On Aug. 27, IBM announced the closing of its $1.4 billion acquisition of Sterling Commerce from AT&T. The addition of Sterling Commerce expands IBM’s ability to help clients accelerate their interactions with customers, partners and suppliers through dynamic business networks using either on-premise or cloud delivery models.
The acquisitions of Sterling Commerce, Coremetrics and Unica — which is expected to close later this year — represent a new market opportunity for IBM. These acquisitions gain IBM entry into the marketing industry to address the roles and needs of marketing professionals. Sterling Commerce provides software for cross-channel commerce and integration of customer, partner and supplier networks across a wide range of industries. The combination of IBM and Sterling Commerce enables the integration of key business processes across channels and among trading partners â⬔ from marketing and selling to order management and fulfillment.
For more, read the eWeek article, IBM Closes Sterling Commerce, Storwize Acquisitions.