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IBM’s acquisition of Cast Iron Systems: stepladder to the Cloud
Monday, May 3, 2010 by Neil Ward-Dutton
Today IBM announced it’s just completed the acquisition of Cast Iron Systems – a 75-person US-based specialist provider of integration technology for Cloud platforms and SaaS applications.
The company started in 2001 focused on providing integration technology for business-to-business deployments of web services; latterly it’s taken its core technology and tweaked its proposition to focus more specifically on integrating Cloud platforms and popular SaaS offerings (it’s particularly close to Salesforce.com) with customers’ on-premise systems.
This is one of those acquisitions that’s just a “duh” moment – it’s obviously a very sound fit with IBM’s position on Cloud computing. For IBM, Cloud is a delivery model for IT-based capabilities – it has a number of initiatives designed to take customers on a journey towards more dynamic infrastructure and applications. But one of the things it – and many other vendors – have found is the persistence of customers’ concern about integration of on- and off-premise computing resources and applications. IBM has had a story for them for a while, centred around DataPower technology and custom development – but Cast Iron is acknowledged as a leader here. Cast Iron helps IBM give its customers a solid stepladder to Cloud-based computing.
As well as its core technology, Cast Iron brings four specific things to IBM: very easy-to-use integration technology and tools, an established community of Cloud-based integration partners (including not only Salesforce.com but also Microsoft, Google, Enomaly, Success Factors, ADP and so on), a “SaaS-aligned” pay-as-you-go licensing and pricing model, and last but not least a significant base of mid-sized customers.
None of these four things have anything to do with Cast Iron’s core technology but IBM – if it does a good job of integrating the company – stands to gain a lot from them.
Posted in General
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