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takyon [soylentnews.org] writes:

IBM Cleared By European Commision To Move Forward In Landmark Purchase Of Red Hat [wccftech.com]

IBM made a big splash with its announcement last fall that it would be moving forward with its largest-ever acquisition. The acquisition in question is for Red Hat, an American open-source software company for an eye-watering $34 billion dollars.

[...] Europe was the last major governing body that had not yet cleared the IBM-Red Hat deal. The U.S. gave it the green light this past May and so with today's announcement that the European Commission has unanimously voted "yes" to allow the deal to proceed, there isn't anything standing in the way. IBM expects the deal to close sometime in July.

Since IBM is a distant third or fourth in the cloud computing scene, regulators found no reason the merger would promote competition concerns in the rapidly expanding cloud computing market. IBM has never bought anything this expensive before, and as a matter of global history, this will go down as the most expensive software sale ever at $34 billion. Interestingly, it seems we are seeing continued consolidation [wccftech.com] in the cloud space with a few other notable recent mergers [wccftech.com] being announced.

Also at Reuters [reuters.com] and CNBC [cnbc.com].

See also: Red Hat millionaires: Watch for workers to cash out if IBM's $34B acquisition wins approval [wraltechwire.com]

Previously: IBM Acquires Red Hat [soylentnews.org]
Three Acquisitions In 2018 To Impact 2019's Tech Landscape [soylentnews.org]

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