IBM acquire Bluetab to expand data and hybrid cloud services

IBM today announced another acquisition, a week after acquiring startup BoxBoat, to expand its portfolio of data, cloud, and analytics services. With Bluetab, IBM aims to further advance its hybrid cloud and AI strategy across Europe, Latin America, and North America.

Founded in 2005, Bluetab has long-standing relationships with leading brands in the banking, telecommunications, and energy and utilities industries across Spain, Mexico, Peru and Colombia. Bluetab enables enterprises to drive more value from their data by transforming their on-premise data and analytics estates to hybrid multi-cloud data platforms using a combination of public cloud providers and technologies including Red Hat OpenShift. 

"The outside-in digital transformation of the past is giving way to the inside-out potential of using company-owned data with AI and automation to generate business value and create intelligent workflows," said Mark Foster, Senior Vice President, IBM Services and Global Business Services. "Our acquisition of Bluetab will fuel migration to the cloud and help our clients to realise even more value from their mission-critical data."

Acceleration in companies moving to the cloud

According to the 2021 State of the Cloud Report, enterprises have almost entirely embraced multi-cloud; 92% of respondents reported having a multi-cloud strategy. 82% are taking a hybrid approach, combining the use of both public and private clouds. 36% of enterprises spend more than $12 million per year on public clouds and 90% of enterprises expect cloud usage to exceed prior plans due to COVID-19.

The market for data services also continues to grow both in revenue and size, despite the pandemic. Gartner forecasted the worldwide data and analytics services market at a five-year compound annual growth rate of 14.6%, reaching $232 billion by 2024.

"The key to solving data challenges for our clients has been the exceptionally talented and experienced team we have been able to build as well as the value-added accelerators we have developed," said José Luis López, Bluetab co-founder. "We could not be more excited by the opportunity that IBM offers us to continue to grow our team, to build on our accelerators and to help more clients achieve leadership positions by leveraging their data."

The financial details of the deal were not disclosed. The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions including regulatory clearance and is expected to close in the third quarter of 2021.