IBM Acquires HashiCorp

April 29, 2024

IBM will acquire HashiCorp for $35 per share in cash, for a total value of approximately $6.4 billion, the companies announced last week.

Arvind Krishna, IBM chairman and chief executive officer, said the acquisition will "create a comprehensive hybrid cloud platform designed for the AI era."

The rise of cloud-native workloads and associated applications is driving a radical expansion in the number of cloud workloads enterprises are managing. In addition, generative AI deployment continues to grow alongside traditional workloads, and the increasingly heterogeneous, dynamic, and complex infrastructure creates massive challenges for technology professionals. The acquisition aims to streamline and simplify application, infrastructure and security lifecycle management, the companies said.

The acquisition will create a comprehensive end-to-end hybrid cloud platform that is designed to handle AI-driven complexity, and tucks in nicely with IBM's focus on strategic growth areas like Red Hat, watsonx, data security, IT automation, and consulting. It also accelerates HashiCorp's growth initiatives through IBM's world-class go-to-market strategy, scale, and reach, operating in more than 175 countries across the globe.

Financially, the acquisition expands the total addressable market (TAM) for combined hybrid and multi-cloud offerings, automation, and workload orchestration and the transaction is "expected to achieve substantial near-term margin expansion for the acquired business. It is anticipated that the transaction will be accretive to adjusted EBITDA within the first full year, post close, and free cash flow in year two," according to a statement from the companies.

Sharon Florentine

Sharon is a master technology storyteller and editor with omnichannel experience: books and print magazines, digital, webcast, blogging, podcast, live events and video and associated brand-specific social media content. From 1999 to 2003, she acquired and edited technology books and certification exam prep guides.

After a year spent in publicity and editorial at mass-market book publishers, she returned to tech publishing and, since 2004, explored B2C and B2B news, issues and trends in consumer, lifestyle, software, software development, AI, ML, networks, big data, hardware, security, storage, cloud, equity, inclusion, diversity, women in tech, career development, IT management, H-1B visa issues and immigration, education, training and learning.

Her previous role was as the managing editor at Techstrong Group in charge of Cloud Native Now, DevOps.com, Security Boulevard and Techstrong ITSM and their brand-specific social media. She currently serves as editorial director for CyberRisk Alliance’s channel brands, ChannelE2E and MSSP Alert and acting editorial director for SC Media UK. Drop me a note and let’s talk!