IBM has bought cloud brokerage software developer Gravitant in an effort to boost the company's hybrid cloud and enterprise offerings.
Gravitant helps companies assess, buy and manage the best cloud computing services for their business from multiple vendors, meaning no lock-in and greater flexibility for both employees and IT departments.
IBM is looking to bolster its hybrid cloud and enterprise computing services to make them more attractive for decision makers who want to embrace the cloud by opening up their infrastructure.
Doing so allows employees to use services hosted on-premise, on public cloud services, and those running on IBM's own private cloud servers.
Gravitant will become part of IBM's Global Technology Services unit and speculation suggests the company will integrate Gravitant's management console into its managed services offering, improving the way companies control their cloud-based software.
"The reality of enterprise IT is that it is many clouds with many characteristics, whether they be economic, capacity or security," said Martin Jetter, SVP of global technology services at IBM, said. "Gravitant provides an innovative approach to add choice and simplicity to how enterprises can now manage their environments. It will be a key component as we broaden our hybrid cloud services."
IBM has been on somewhat of a spending spree of late, with a particular interest in cloud-based firms. At the beginning of October, it bought object-based storage software and appliance developer Cleversafe to offer customers next-generation mobile, social and analytics applications, while in September it acquired software company StrongLoop to boost the health and life sciences part of its cloud business.
