IBM Sets Up Online Cloud Shop

IBM on Monday launched an online marketplace that brings together its array of cloud services, as well as those of partners including MongoDB, NewRelic, Redis Labs, Twilio and Zend, with an array of initial services including big data and analytics, security and mobile offerings.

The IBM Cloud marketplace includes more than 100 IBM cloud offerings, as well as middleware components based on IBM’s Bluemix cloud platform, which allows developers to build and test applications before offering them on the new IBM marketplace. The company announced 30 new additions to BlueMix from itself and partners in areas including big data, cloud integrations and the Internet of Things.

Hybrid cloud support

IBM launched BlueMix with a billion-dollar investment in February, positioning it as a portal to the company’s SoftLayer infrastructure as a Service (IaaS).

The company said the IBM Cloud marketplace is intended to help companies make the transition to the cloud, and in partcular to support the combination of on-premises and cloud-based systems by offering a range of integration components and control services for connection, monitoring and control of hybrid environments.

“IBM Cloud marketplace puts big data analytics, mobile, social, commerce, integration — the full power of IBM-as-a-Service and our ecosystem — at our clients’ fingertips to help them quickly deliver innovative services to their constituents,” said Robert LeBlanc, senior vice president of IBM software and cloud solutions, in a prepared statement.

Gartner has said it expects half of enterprises to have hybrid clouds in place within three years.

Cloud spending

IBM has invested heavily to build up its cloud offerings and to catch up with competitors including Amazon and Microsoft, including spending $1.2bn (£756m) to acquire SoftLayer and another $2bn to expand the service, $1bn to adapt its middleware to the cloud as part of Bluemix, and more than $7bn on cloud-related acquisitions including Aspera and Cloudant.

The company earned $4.4bn in cloud-related revenue last year, amidst ongoing declines in hardware sales.

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