IBM has waded into the cloud-based enterprise mobile device management (MDM) market with the intended purchase of Fiberlink Communications.
IBM said it intends to acquire Fiberlink, which offers a cloud-based MDM solution under MaaS360. However, the terms of the deal are not known at this juncture and the acquisition is anticipated to close later this year.
This is IBM's eighth acquisition in the last one and a half years, at the rate of one acquisition every two months.
"In a mobile first world, clients require a comprehensive mobile management and security offering. Often times they integrate solutions on their own and take on unnecessary risk," said Robert LeBlanc, IBM senior vice president, Middleware Software. "To protect and enhance the complete mobile experience, it's crucial to secure the app, user, content, data and the transaction. The acquisition of Fiberlink will enable us to offer these expanded capabilities to our clients, making it simple and quick to unlock the full potential of mobility."
"This is the same acquisition Cisco had in its growth phase. It proves they are serious about the space. It also proves they are moving at a faster pace than most companies of that size," says Forbes.
IBM is expected to offer MaaS360 as a service which will run on its SoftLayer cloud infrastructure. However, the MDM solution will also be "offered as an on-premise solution."
MaaS360 not only offers MDM, but also application management and containerization. The service is known for being easy to install and use. The acquisition of Fiberlink, is also in harmony with IBM's recent acquisition of Trusteer, which is accompany that specializes in securing mobile transactions.
"It's not just about BYOD [bring your own device]," said Caleb Barlow, IBM's director of mobile security. "It's about how do I protect the device, how do I protect the transactions, and how do I roll that all into a secure intelligence layer."
According to Fiberlink's CEO Jim Sheward, the acquisition will not affect the day-to-day operations at the company. However, Sheward is "looking forward to bringing MaaS360 to SoftLayer."
"While the proliferation of mobile devices provides great flexibility and agility for organizations, it also increases the complexity to manage and protect corporate data," Sheward said. "We are looking forward to becoming part of IBM's strategy to put mobile first and deliver holistic mobile device and app management and security for today's always-connected workforce."
Fiberlink has 400 employees globally and services nearly 3,500 customers in banking, healthcare and manufacturing. Vodafone, Shell and MasterCard are among its well-known clients.
