In a bid to expand its hybrid cloud service offering, IBM plans to acquire Nordcloud, a Finnish company specializing in cloud strategy implementation, migration and cloud-based services.

Founded in 2010, Nordcloud is certified to accompany customers in using Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, and Microsoft Azure, and sells project-specific services as well as managed ones, from DevOps support and Kubernetes activation to managed cloud security.

It provides training in working with any of the top three cloud providers.

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– Sebastian Moss

Cloudy future

The firms haven’t disclosed the financial terms of the deal, only that it is likely to go ahead in the first quarter of 2021, at which point Nordcloud will become an IBM company.

As hybrid cloud adoption and the service market continue to grow, companies are increasingly adding this to their offering, meaning that customers can turn to them from the planning stages and application development through to service use and upscaling.

In October 2020, IBM announced plans to spin off its IT services division - despite their sales being worth a quarter of its revenue - in order to focus on cloud services.

According to CEO Arvind Krishna, the so-called “digital transformation journey” is worth $1 trillion and is one in which IBM lags behind its competitors, whereas "infrastructure modernization" is a $500 billion market.

John Granger, IBM Global Business Services’ chief operating officer, said that with customers “increasingly taking a more holistic approach to application modernization that allows them to operate across a traditional IT environment, private cloud and public clouds," IBM’s acquisition of Nordcloud “adds the kind of deep expertise that will drive our clients' digital transformations as well as support the further adoption of IBM's hybrid cloud platform.”

“Nordcloud's cloud-native tools, methodologies and talent send a strong signal that IBM is committed to deliver our clients' successful journey to cloud."

Chairman and founder of Nordcloud Fernando Herrera said he was “very excited to embrace IBM's open innovation mindset and help grow its global footprint” in light of the two firms’ complementary approaches to cloud strategy implementation.