RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK – IBM could be in the market to make another acquisition in its bid to be more competitive as a cloud services provider.
While still absorbing Raleigh-based Red Hat in a $34 billion deal last year – its biggest buy in the company’s history – there’s bizz now that Big Blue could be targeting could service provider Cloudera (CLDR), which reportedly is entertaining offers.
The cloud was a key driver in IBM’s buy of Red Hat. And if Cloudera – which like Red Hat has an open source focus – is indeed for sale then IBM might make a play as it continues to fight for marketshare with Amazon Web Services, Microsoft and Google.
IBM “is the most likely strategic buyer, especially given the partnership between Cloudera and IBM,” wrote analyst Rishi Jaluria at D.A. Davidson. He noted that a deal would complement the Red Hat buy.
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Notes Annie Gaus at The Street: “The two firms teamed up starting last year on data and AI programs within Apache Hadoop.”
But CloudEra won’t come cheaply. It has a $2.9 billion dollar market cap, and shares climbed to $12 on Tuesday after Bloomberg reported that the company is open to a takeover.
Among CloudEra investors is Wall Street maverick Carl ichan.
Amazon, Google and Microsoft also might be interested, setting the stage for a bidding war.
“The company is working with a financial adviser to evaluate its options, [sources] said, asking not to be identified because the matter is private,” Bloomberg reported.
