Equinix Acquires Nimbo To Help Enterprises Better Take Advantage Of Cloud

The latest cloud professional services company to be snapped up is Nimbo, which was acquired Tuesday by Equinix as the data center and interconnection company looks to ramp up its cloud investments.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Nimbo, which focuses on professional services for enterprises looking to implement hybrid cloud solutions, will be Equinix's first foray into professional services. The acquisition is part of a strategic shift to focus more on helping enterprises derive value from the cloud, Equinix Chief Development Officer Mark Adams said.

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"In many ways, Equinix is an enabler to the community. That's always been our philosophy and we try to help customers take advantage of our cloud infrastructure," Adams said. "I see this cloud ecosystem moving very quickly and by pulling in Nimbo, we're better able to help enterprises take advantage of the cloud."

Nimbo has extensive experience in the professional services market, focusing primarily on helping enterprises implement hybrid cloud solutions. The company has been skyrocketing in revenue in recent years, with just less than $10 million in revenue last year, landing it at No. 3 on CRN's 2014 Fast Growth 150 list and on the CRN Next-Gen 250 list.

Adams said Equinix is already seeing demand "take off" across its more than 100 data centers globally as clients use cloud more and more to handle excess capacity and big data and analytics. The problem, Adams said, is that enterprises aren't always sure how to architect their environments to best take advantage of the cloud. That's the key behind the Nimbo acquisition, Adams said, which will add enterprise-focused cloud IT architecture professional services to its line card.

"The cloud is a huge opportunity for enterprises and the technology is still quite new. Enterprises aren’t experienced on how to do this, so I think it's a great opportunity. We view this as a great way to help our customers leverage the cloud and what we're excited about is that this is a new skill set," Adams said. "We see this as a win."

In particular, Adams said Nimbo will help Equinix's more than 5,400 clients take advantage of the company's Cloud Exchange, a cloud interconnection solution with direct access to major public cloud vendors.

Nimbo will continue to operate independently under the leadership of current CEO John Shaw. By doing that, Adams said Nimbo can provide vendor-agnostic professional services to enterprise clients. While that might mean the vendor chosen isn't always Equinix, Adams said the end goal is driving value for clients over driving a cloud sale.

Adams said he has already gotten "very strong, very positive" feedback from the enterprise clients on the acquisition news.

"A lot of our cloud customers are excited and see us as an enabler to help people get to the cloud," Adams said.

As Equinix continues to expand, Adams said he expects Nimbo to just be the first of many acquisitions to add new capabilities. Adams said he sees particular opportunities around data center migration and WAN optimization.

"We see this as a long-term vision," Adams said.

PUBLISHED JAN. 21, 2014