IBM pumps $1.2 billion into global cloud data centers | NetworkWorld.com

“Having lots of data centers in lots of different countries around the world will be important in the long term,” said IBM SoftLayer CEO Lance Crosby. “We want the world to understand that cloud is transformational for IBM.”

The company plans to open 15 new data centers this year, more than doubling the cloud capacity it acquired when it purchased SoftLayer last year for $2 billion. It plans to combine the new data centers, the existing SoftLayer data centers, and the data centers it already ran before the SoftLayer purchase into a single operation that would provide public and private cloud services to its customers, as well as provide services for internal operations.

While IBM has remained relatively quiet about its cloud plans, at least in comparison to Microsoft and Amazon Web Services, it has been busy preparing for the cloud-centric future, said Rebecca Wettemann, a vice president at the enterprise IT analysis firm Nucleus Research. This announcement is the logical next step for the company, Wettemann said.

“IBM has always taken a measured approach to announcements. But IBM has quietly been running data centers for a long time, and the IBM cloud has been established,” she said. “We’ve seen a slow transformation of IBM from a services company to a software company, and now to a cloud company.”

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Kenneth Carnesi holds a Juris Doctor degree from New York Law School and a Professional Certificate in International Banking from Harvard Law School. Kenneth Carnesi is the Director of Operations and Government Sales at Anaptyx LLC and sits on the Boards of The Lazarus Organization, Monkeetech LLC and MG Madison Phillips, Inc. Mr. Carnesi has also founded CICG - Carnesi International Consulting Group, a company specializing in strategy consulting to small to mid-size businesses.