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1Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minute2Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errors3Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesIBM acquired SoftLayer to expand its public-cloud infrastructure and give customers more ways to combine public, private, and hybrid cloud services. Announced on June 4, 2013, and completed on July 3, the deal was valued at $1.977 billion in cash, according to IBM’s SEC filing. IBM planned to bring SoftLayer together with SmartCloud in a new global cloud services division.
What IBM announced—and when the deal closed
The acquisition unfolded across three distinct dates. IBM’s June announcement said it had reached a definitive agreement but did not disclose the financial terms. IBM later reported the completed transaction and its consideration in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
- June 4, 2013: IBM announced its agreement to acquire SoftLayer. Financial terms were not disclosed in that announcement. IBM’s announcement
- July 3, 2013: IBM completed its acquisition of 100 percent of SoftLayer for $1,977 million in cash consideration, according to IBM’s SEC-filed third-quarter disclosure.
- July 8, 2013: IBM publicly announced the completion and described SoftLayer’s planned role in its new cloud services division. IBM’s closing announcement
The $1.977 billion figure is not inconsistent with the June statement that terms were undisclosed: the first announcement preceded the later filing that reported consideration for the completed acquisition.
How SoftLayer was intended to boost SmartCloud
IBM’s stated aim was to make it easier and faster for customers to add cloud computing to their IT infrastructure. It presented SoftLayer as an addition to IBM’s public-cloud infrastructure, complementing the company’s SmartCloud portfolio and supporting a broader range of deployment choices.
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IBM described the intended combination as a global cloud platform in a new cloud services division, bringing together SoftLayer and IBM SmartCloud. In IBM’s 2013 positioning, SoftLayer added public-cloud infrastructure and the choice of dedicated or shared servers; IBM emphasized its enterprise portfolio, including reliability, security, management, and openness. IBM said the combination would help customers use public and private cloud together. Those are the company’s rationale and claims at the time, not an independent comparison or a description of IBM’s current product lineup.
“With SoftLayer, IBM will accelerate the build-out of our public cloud infrastructure to give clients the broadest choice of cloud offerings to drive business innovation.”
— Erich Clementi, IBM Senior Vice President, Global Technology Services, in IBM’s June 4, 2013 announcement
The strategy reflected a wider shift toward delivering IT infrastructure as a service and combining different infrastructure types in hybrid environments. Philbert Shih, managing director of Structure Research, described the deal in contemporaneous coverage as an adaptation to those changes. Contemporaneous coverage
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What SoftLayer brought to the deal
IBM’s acquisition announcement described SoftLayer as an established cloud infrastructure provider. IBM reported that SoftLayer served approximately 21,000 customers and operated 13 data centers across the U.S., Asia, and Europe in 2013. These are announcement-era figures reported by IBM, not current counts.
The announcement-era portfolio included dedicated and shared servers, virtual servers, private cloud, storage, networking, and security services. The strategic point was the breadth of infrastructure options IBM could add to its cloud plans—not a claim that every offering was interchangeable or that one platform was universally faster or better.
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What the acquisition does—and does not—establish
The transaction establishes what IBM paid and what the company said it intended to do in 2013. It does not, by itself, demonstrate that the planned integration achieved a particular performance result or that the division’s original product structure remains in place today. IBM’s rationale should be read as its strategic positioning at announcement, rather than as an independently verified verdict on either company’s technology.
In practical terms, IBM was buying an established infrastructure platform and customer base to strengthen its public-cloud offering, while positioning SmartCloud and SoftLayer together as options for enterprise customers considering public, private, or hybrid deployments.
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