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Top Cloud Computing Acquisitions of 2010
By Chris Talbot on 2010-12-27



Maybe it’s an exaggeration, but it seems like barely a day goes by where there isn’t at least one new cloud services provider popping up. With all the growth in the cloud market and the increase in the number of providers, whether they’re all-in-one providers or have niche offerings, it’s no surprise that major IT vendors from Dell to Google to IBM to Cisco to HP are buying their way into the cloud market -- or complementing their existing cloud offerings -- by acquiring these smaller players. Even as some other parts of the IT industry showed a noticeable slowdown in acquisitions during 2010, the cloud computing arena had many examples of big companies buying smaller cloud service providers. Take a look at 10 of the most important and significant acquisitions in the cloud during 2010.
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Dell acquires Boomi

With an eye towards building out its infrastructure and cloud offerings, Dell announced its intention to purchase SaaS integration tools provider Boomi in November. At one time known as a personal computing company, this acquisition is an important step for Dell in getting into the cloud services market.

Google snaps up DocVerse

Google’s list of acquisitions in 2010 is impressive, to say the least, but with the March acquisition of DocVerse, the “do no evil” company threw down the gauntlet in front of productivity applications rival Microsoft. DocVerse, which became part of Google Docs, enables Microsoft users to edit and share documents online.

Red Hat snags Makara

Red Hat intends to accelerate the development of its platform-as-a-service (PaaS) solution in its Cloud Foundations portfolio with the acquisition of Makara. The acquired company develops solutions for deployment, management, monitoring and scaling of applications on public and private clouds.

IBM buys Cast Iron Systems

IBM acquired Cast Iron Systems in May to strengthen its own cloud portfolio. With the acquisition, IBM laid its hands on Cast Iron’s cloud integration software, appliances and services that enable organizations to create hybrid cloud computing environments.

CA picks up 3Tera

CA made strong inroads into cloud computing with acquisitions of cloud development companies. In February, CA bought 3Tera and rolled the latter’s cloud construction and deployment services into its portfolio.

CA purchases Nimsoft

Barely a month later, CA bought Nimsoft, which provides monitoring solutions for MSPs and enterprise customers. It gives CA another piece of the cloud puzzle, enabling it to ramp up its own solutions even more.

CA nabs 4Base Technologies

Finally, in August, CA acquired virtualization and cloud infrastructure firm 4Base Technologies to add additional cloud capabilities to the CA Virtualization and Cloud Strategy group. 4Base built its reputation on helping customers with cloud adoption.

Salesforce.com acquires Heroku

Salesforce.com announced its acquisition of cloud platform company Heroku in December. The acquisition will enable Salesforce.com to increase its presence in the cloud computing market – specifically in social and mobile applications.

Cisco Systems buys LineSider Technologies

Also in December, Cisco announced its plans to acquire LineSider Technologies, which provides network management software that assists customers in building network services needed to securely build and deploy cloud infrastructure. With LineSider, Cisco adds not just the technology to its portfolio, but also an engineering team.

HP purchases Stratavia

HP made inroads into the cloud with its August acquisition of Stratavia, a database warehousing software provider. Stratavia fits into HP’s Software and Solutions group, and its technology will support cloud infrastructures.

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