Hard on the heals of IBM acquiring Cast Iron Systems a few weeks ago, IBM has now announced that it will buy Sterling Commerce for $1.4bn in cash. It's another chapter in the B2B industry consolidation story, following on GXS's purchase of Inovis also only a few short weeks ago.
Analysts see it as significant. Gartner's blog, for example, explains that IBM's WebSphere group now has "a lotta B2B horsepower".
It continues: "The WebSphere group now has even more integration software" and adds, "Sterling Collaborative Network plus Cast Iron Cloud equals a viable 'integration as a service' offering for both traditional ecommerce and cloud services."
Gartner also makes the point that IBM has pitched this acquisition in the context of dynamic business networks.
However, it looks at the competitive landscape and reasons: "From an industry impact, think about other IT mega-vendors and think about other 'pure-play' B2B vendors. What impact might this acquisition have on SAP's alliance with Crossgate or Oracle's alliance with E2open?"
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