IBM Closes Acquisition of Fiberlink Communications
With New Cloud-Based Capabilities that Further Expand IBM MobileFirst Solutions, IBM Transforms Mobile Management and Security Market
IBM today announced it has completed the acquisition of Fiberlink Communications, a privately held mobile management and security company based in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania. Financial terms were not disclosed.
Fiberlink’s MaaS360 offering expands IBM MobileFirst solutions with new cloud-based capabilities to deliver a comprehensive mobile management and security solution for global organizations of all sizes. This acquisition supports IBM’s expanding vision for enterprise mobility management, which encompasses secure transactions between businesses, partners and customers.
This acquisition builds on the IBM MobileFirst strategy of bringing all mobile resources together to support a full range of capabilities. Those capabilities include managing “bring your own device” (BYOD) initiatives, improving the user experience, and delivering trusted transaction and security intelligence capabilities for mobile apps, users, content and data.
“With the acquisition of Fiberlink, no other company can match the high level of mobile management and security capabilities that IBM MobileFirst provides across a full range of users. Building on Fiberlink’s rapid time to value, clients now gain additional solutions to quickly and confidently embrace mobility,” said Deepak Advani, general manager, Cloud and Smarter Infrastructure, IBM. “IBM continues to expand the number of cloud-based services we offer clients to help eliminate barriers to adoption and speed results.”
The MaaS360 offering is now available as part of IBM’s Software as a Service (SaaS) portfolio of more than 100 cloud services. IBM plans to offer the MaaS360 product on the IBM SoftLayer cloud infrastructure.
The MaaS360 offering has been recognized for its fast time to value and exceptional user experience, including the ability for organizations to set up a comprehensive solution for mobile management and security in just minutes with end-user self-service enrollment.
The MaaS360 product will enable IBM to offer cloud-based or on-premise mobile device management (MDM), mobile content management (MCM), and mobile application management (MAM) including containerization. With MaaS360 and its approach to mobile application containers, organizations will gain the building blocks to separate personal from enterprise data and content on mobile devices. Over time, organizations can benefit from integration with solutions like IBM Worklight and IBM Security QRadar to enable the development of secure apps, which include policies that are implemented and enforced by the MaaS360 offering.
Additionally, the combination of IBM Endpoint Manager and the MaaS360 offering will allow IBM to offer Unified Device Management, supporting either SaaS or on-premise deployments for all of an organization’s endpoints – from laptop, desktop and server to mobile devices.