IBM Closes $34 Billion Red Hat Acquisition in Cloud Catch-Up

The deal marks the second-biggest technology transaction ever
Big Blue has struggled to compete with Amazon and Microsoft

IBM Will Help Red Hat Extend Reach in $34 Billion Deal(Source: Bloomberg)

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By Olivia Carville

July 9, 2019 at 12:30 PM UTC

Updated on

July 9, 2019 at 2:49 PM UTC

This article is for subscribers only.

IBM closed its $34 billion purchase of Red Hat, sealing the world’s second-largest technology deal ever and setting up the iconic U.S. company on a path to try to compete with top software purveyors in the cloud.

The 108-year-old International Business Machines Corp., once synonymous with mainframe computing, has been struggling to adopt cloud-related technologies. It’s playing catch-up to market leaders Amazon.com Inc. and Microsoft Corp. in offering computing and other software and services over the internet.