HP to buy Stackato to boost hybrid cloud strategy

In October 2014, HP launched its Helion Development Platform, a PaaS offering based on the open-source Cloud Foundry technology aimed at giving customers a platform their developers can use to easily create, run and manage cloud applications by leveraging open APIs and a broad range of develop tools. “The acquisition reinforces HP’s focus on driving Cloud Foundry as the open standard cloud native application platform”.

Earlier this year, IDC analyst for software development Al Hilwa told InformationWeek, “ActiveState’s Stackato is one of the most mature implementations of Cloud Foundry on the market today”. “Since launching the HP Helion Development Platform, we have seen increased interest and feedback from customers who want to do more with hybrid cloud”, Bill Hilf, senior vice president of cloud and service management for HP, said in a post on the company blog.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise, which will control the company’s cloud division, will have a new product after purchasing Stackato, an application development PaaS.

Stackato is available as PaaS or for on-premises installation. HP is focusing on these hybrid cloud needs rather than competing on the public cloud front, committing a billion investment to hybrid cloud previous year.

The strong support for Linux containers will help HP build on its hybrid cloud strategy.

HP announced its deal to acquire ActiveState Software Inc.’s Stackato business, a Platform as a Service (PaaS) solution. Stackato and HP have partnered in the past, so the move is not entirely a surprise.

HP owned just ActiveState’s Stackato solution for an classified amount of money, not the complete firm. The Cloud Foundry project originated inside VMware.

ActiveState started in 1997 and is based in Vancouver.