International Business Machines (IBM) has announced that it is set to acquire software company Apptio in a $4.6 billion deal with Vista Equity Partners.
In a press release, the tech giant said that the acquisition of Apptio, which helps businesses manage their technology spending and investments in cloud solutions, would accelerate the advancement of IBM’s IT automation capabilities and boost its cloud offerings.
"Technology is changing business at a rate and pace we've never seen before. To capitalize on these changes, it is essential to optimize investments which drive better business value, and Apptio does just that," said IBM CEO and Chairman, Arvind Krishna.
In particular, the combination of Apptio’s offerings and IBM software would give clients a 360-degree technology business management platform, providing a "virtual command center" for spend management and optimization stretching across their entire technology landscape, IBM said.
In addition, Apptio, which serves over half of the Fortune 100, would bring to IBM $450 billion of anonymized IT spend data, providing new insights for clients and partners.
"Our customers are evolving to a complex digital-first, hybrid world where technology investments are distributed and decentralized but all innovation must be aligned with clear business outcomes," said Apptio CEO and co-founder, Sunny Gupta.
"We are so excited to be joining IBM and combining our industry leading offerings with IBM's global presence and strong portfolio across AIOps, automation, and hybrid cloud offerings," he added.
The deal, which is expected to close in the latter half of 2023, shows the tech giant’s deepening focus and investment in AI and cloud-based solutions.
In 2019, IBM acquired software provider Red Hat for about $34 billion. Recently, it also expanded its partnership with Adobe to help brands speed up their content supply chains through the software developer’s AI services.
