On January 21, 2016, IBM acquired Ustream, a leading live and on-demand video solution company, to propel its cloud service business. This acquisition will make IBM capable of providing enterprise live video stream service to the world. With this, a new member joining the IBM cloud service family.
Ustream provides cloud-based video streaming to enterprises and broadcasters for everything from corporate keynotes to live music concerts. The company streams live and on-demand video to about 80 million viewers per month for customers such as NASA, Samsung, Facebook, Nike, HBO and The Discovery Channel.
IBM will deliver a powerful portfolio of video services that spans open API development, digital and visual analytics, simplified management and consistent delivery across global industries. IBM hopes to move IBM Cloud as a leading platform for digital video services as video becomes more pervasive and data rich.
IBM is now in the process of transforming to a cognitive company as it believe people now enter a cognitive era. The basis of this transformation is the Waston system which defeated human in Jeopardy held in 2011. To propel its cloud business which is a part of its cognitive strategy, IBM made a few acquisitions in past few years including the weather company, Merge Healthcare Inc and Bluebox etc. All these acquisitions cover different aspects of life service.
IBM understands it cannot rely on its hardware department to grow now since the demand of its mainframes and servers is not that strong anymore, hence the pace of paving the way for cloud is accelerating in past two years. With the drop of revenue in past few consecutive quarters, IBM hopes to make a turn back with its ongoing business transformation which saved it once 20 years ago.
