IBM Buys Softlayer

[Reece-DM]

- International Business Machines Corp said on Tuesday that it would acquire database Web hosting company SoftLayer Technologies and create a new division for clients interested in cloud services.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/04/us-softlayer-ibm-idUSBRE9530NT20130604

Email sent to clients of softlayer:

Hello.

I have some exciting news to share

 

[A Jump From Let]

Must be a huge deal.

What about The Planet and any companies eaten earlier by SoftLayer?

 

[Kalam]

Interesting. I'm torn on how I feel about this, and if/how this will impact the hosting industry.

 

[Reece-DM]

Must be a huge deal.

What about The Planet and any companies eaten earlier by SoftLayer?

I would assume that they're apart of the deal.

 

[A Jump From Let]

Interesting. I'm torn on how I feel about this, and if/how this will impact the hosting industry.

If anything it shall have a good impact on prices. IBM is able to extents (or fully) provide new equipment, at cost price. 

I would assume that they're apart of the deal.

Wondering how much IBM spent for it  ^_^

 

[MannDude]

Nice! Anyone here do any business with Softlayer? Curious to see how things change there over the coming months. Keep us posted!

 

[libro22]

I'm curious if the acquisition will increase Softlayer's prices and whether they will focus more on enterprise clients.

 

[365Networks]

I remember hearing about this awhile back and that is great to hear it went through. Only time will tell if it was the right choice for the clients.

 

[drmike]

$2 BILLION is the "sale" price.

 

[AnthonySmith]

I can tell you from experience it probably will not change or if anything increase softlayer prices, IBM will not do anything to compete on price, they would rather loose a deal than lower their prices by $1 they charge what they charge and that is it, I know they turned down a $10 billion contract for the UK Government about 7 years ago because they were not prepared to deliver it in a cost effective manner they wanted to do everything at a high end rather than budget at all, softlayer have a similar ethic i.e. "yes you can get it cheaper else where... so fuck off and go else where if your only interested in costs" which is why it was probably an easy decision to buy them.

 

[Mike]

I just hope they don't change the pricing models or customer ethics into enterprise only.

 

[WSWD]

Can't get any worse.  I had entire racks with EV1 and ThePlanet back in the day.  SL took over and the whole operation went to hell.  The horror stories on other forums about completely useless techs., formatting incorrect drives, formatting incorrect servers,, etc. are not made up.  Then you get absolutely outrageous prices for hardware upgrades, etc.

Leaving them shortly after the merger was the best thing we ever did.  I honestly can't see how things can possibly get worse.

 

[Aesthemic]

I can tell you from experience it probably will not change or if anything increase softlayer prices, IBM will not do anything to compete on price, they would rather loose a deal than lower their prices by $1 they charge what they charge and that is it, I know they turned down a $10 billion contract for the UK Government about 7 years ago because they were not prepared to deliver it in a cost effective manner they wanted to do everything at a high end rather than budget at all, softlayer have a similar ethic i.e. "yes you can get it cheaper else where... so fuck off and go else where if your only interested in costs" which is why it was probably an easy decision to buy them.

This is pretty much my sentiment exactly. IBM is not interested in price point; they are interested in the larger deals rather than the smaller deals. They are more of an enterprise provider than anything else. For most customers I don't really see much of a benefit to IBM acquiring SoftLayer.