IBM has acquired Australian consulting firm, SXiQ. The Melbourne-headquartered firm (which appears to have between 100 and 200 employees according to LinkedIn) specialises in cloud applications, cloud platforms and cloud cybersecurity.
SXiQ is an excellent fit for IBM, which now positions itself as a hybrid cloud and AI firm, and follows recent acquisitions of Nordcloud, Taos and BoxBoat in Europe and North America. The acquisition of McD Tech Labs was another interesting move.
SXiQ will add to IBM’s consulting capabilities in Australia and New Zealand, bringing specific expertise in Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure to support customer cloud migrations and broader hybrid plans. It is the 20th acquisition since CEO, Arvind Krishna, took up his role. Of those, half have been in the consulting area, which speaks volumes about where IBM is looking to increase its capabilites/respond to market demand.
Third-quarter numbers from IBM in October showed the firm delivered steady (i.e., flat) revenue growth over the comparable quarter last year. Notably, Global Business Services was up 11%, driven by ecosystem and cloud offerings and continued momentum in Red Hat engagements. Inside of GBS, Consulting revenue was up 16% and Application Management up 5%.
Sourced from Tech Market View - Written by Kate Hanaghan