IBM Acquires Platform Computing

IBM announced the completion of its acquisition of Platform Computing, a maker of technical and distributed computing management software, to bolster its position in the cloud computing space.

In a 9 January press release, IBM said it closed the deal to acquire Toronto, Ontario-based Platform Computing, but financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Cluster, grid and cloud management

IBM initially announced in October that it had entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Platform Computing, a global leader in cluster, grid and cloud management software for distributed computing environments. Platform Computing will be integrated into IBM’s Systems and Technology Group.

“The acquisition of Platform Computing will help accelerate IBM’s growth in smarter computing, a key initiative in IBM’s Smarter Planet strategy, by extending the reach of our HPC offerings into the high growth segment of technical computing,” said Helene Armitage, general manager of IBM Systems Software, in a statement. “Our intent is to enable clients to uncover insights from growing volumes of data so they can take actions that optimise business results.”

Platform Computing’s software helps users create, integrate and manage shared computing environments that are used in compute- and data-intensive applications, such as simulations, computer modeling and analytics.

These technical and high-performance computing (HPC) applications fuel product development, critical business decisions and breakthrough science in financial services, manufacturing, digital media, oil and gas, life sciences, government, research and education. More than 2,000 clients, including 23 of the top 30 largest global enterprises, use Platform Computing solutions, IBM said.

Moreover, IBM said across enterprises of all sizes, application complexity and the amount of data continue to grow significantly, driving the need for more and more compute capacity and high-performance, low-latency management and analytics tools.

Infrastructure flexibility

By combining Platform Computing’s software with IBM’s high-performance systems and software, IBM can better serve enterprise clients who are turning to technical computing to accelerate application performance, improve infrastructure flexibility and reduce time to results.

IBM intends to support Platform Computing’s software on heterogeneous systems and continue to work with many of Platform Computing’s existing partners, the company said.