IBM is buying Apptio – its seventh acquisition in 2023

IBM (NYSE: IBM) just announced plans of buying Apptio – a Washington-based software company that will help advance its automation capabilities.

Apptio could boost Red Hat sales

The tech behemoth has agreed to pay $4.6 billion in cash for the said acquisition. On CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street”, Rob Thomas – the Chief Commercial Officer of IBM said today:

As we transformed IBM, we’ve said hybrid cloud, artificial intelligence, that’ll be the focus. This fits right into our strategy around automation. We think this can really be a game changer.

He expects the buyout of Apptio to be a tailwind for Red Hat as well.

IBM has been on a buying spree this year. It’s the seventh deal that the multinational has announced since the start of 2023. IBM stock is currently down 10% versus its YTD high.

How does Apptio help IBM’s A.I. push

The transaction is expected to complete by the end of this year provided that it wins regulatory approval and satisfies other customary closing conditions, as per the press release.

Last month, the Armonk-headquartered firm announced an enterprise and A.I. ready data platform called Watsonx. According to Rob Thomas:

Watsonx has capability around building foundation models and there’s a component of data. Think about what you could do when you have more data. It changes the models you could build.

Apptio has data on $450 billion of IT spend, he revealed. In April, IBM reported weaker-than-expected revenue for its fiscal first quarter.