Ericsson is continuing its buying spree of cloud technologies, acquiring a major stake in US-based IT cloud company Apcera.
Apcera, founded in 2012, provides an IT platform as a service (PaaS), dubbed Continuum, which enables enterprises to control the allocation and consumption of IT resources on premise and in the cloud.
The acquisition will strengthen Ericsson’s position in the cloud market by extending the company's network approach into operator and enterprise cloud.
It will also allow Ericsson to deliver complete cloud automation to run all workloads and use cases, while providing complete control for infrastructure, the Swedish firm said.
Upon the completion of the deal - which is expected to close during the fourth quarter - Apcera will operate as a standalone company and become part of Ericsson’s Segment Networks division.
Apcera founder and CEO Derek Collison, a former Google and VMware executive, will continue as chief executive.
In addition, Ericsson has committed to providing significant funding for Apcera's technology and global expansion of its enterprise sales channel.
The deal is Ericsson’s latest acquisition of a cloud technology company. Last week, Ericsson announced plans to buy Fabrix Systems for $95 million, in a move to extend its TV and media portfolio by adding video cloud storage and computing capabilities like cloud DVR and VoD.
The company also announced at the same week that it will exit the LTE modem business and redirect its resources into the network side, specifically small cells.
Ericsson said Thursday it will discontinue future development of modems and shift parts of resources in modems to better capture growth opportunities in radio networks, especially within small cells, energy efficiency and M2M.