The race to buy up providers of business services over the internet intensified yesterday with two industry giants making acquisitions worth a combined $4.5bn, underlining how cloud computing is reshaping the information technology industry.
The acquisitions by IBM and Salesforce are the latest signs of a strategic shift in the tech sector as businesses increasingly buy software and services over the internet from remote locations that were formerly run on inhouse computers.
IBM, which has made cloud computing a core part of its future strategy, paid $2bn for SoftLayer, a private company from Dallas, according to people familiar with the matter.