IBM to buy European cloud startup Nordcloud, sees $1 trn market opportunity

International Business Machines will acquire European startup Nordcloud, the latest in a series of acquisitions for the 109-year old firm preparing a mega spin-off to focus on cloud computing.

The world’s first big computing firm has set its sights on the so-called hybrid cloud, where it sees a $1 trillion market opportunity as more companies use a combination of their own datacenters and leased computing resources to manage and process data.

IBM did not disclose on Monday how much it paid for the Finland-based firm.

Since taking office in April, Chief Executive Officer Arvind Krishna has acquired at least five startups from the hybrid cloud space. Krishna was the principal architect behind IBM’s $34 billion Red Hat deal last year.

IBM President Jim Whitehurst, in an interview with Reuters on Monday, said the company was unlikely to do a major acquisition in the cloud sector in near future.

“I don’t see some big $10 billion acquisition that we need to do,” Whitehurst said.