Computing and services giant IBM will announce on Thursday that it has reached a deal to acquire Bluewolf Group, a consulting company that focuses on helping businesses use Salesforce and other cloud software applications.
IBM to Acquire Cloud Consulting Firm Bluewolf for About $200 Million
Bluewolf is the biggest consulting partner for Salesforce.com.
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Terms of the deal will not be disclosed, but according to sources familiar with the matter, IBM is paying slightly more than $200 million. Bluewolf will be added to IBM’s Interactive Experience, or iX, unit, which is a part of the massive Global Business Services consulting arm.
San Francisco-based Bluewolf was founded in 2000 with the intent of shaking up the software consulting business. In 2002 co-founder and CEO Eric Berridge met up with Marc Benioff, his former boss at software giant Oracle. The meeting resulted in the creation of Bluewolf’s practice, devoted almost entirely to helping companies deploy and more effectively use Salesforce. It has now worked with some 9,500 companies.
IBM’s plan is to marry Bluewolf’s reach with its own cloud software and infrastructure capabilities. It makes for the latest in a string of cloud-focused acquisitions by Big Blue in recent months. In January it acquired cloud video hosting service UStream. And late last year it paid more than $2 billion for digital assets of the Weather Company.
CEO Ginni Rometty has been steadily working to transform IBM from a computing hardware company into one that specializes in business software and services delivered via the cloud, along with unique computing capabilities such as its Watson cognitive computing platform. She’ll get a chance to explain how it’s all going at our upcoming Code conference later this year.
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
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