- The deal is expected to close before the end of October 2020, subject to customary closing conditions including receipt of regulatory approvals
- SUSE said that this acquisition is the first step in the company’s growth strategy since becoming a fully independent software company in March 2019
SUSE has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire RancherLabs. It is based in Cupertino, California, and is a privately held open source company providing Kubernetes Management platform. The deal is expected to close before the end of October 2020, subject to customary closing conditions including receipt of regulatory approvals.
Melissa Di Donato, SUSE CEO said, “This is an incredible moment for our industry, as two open source leaders are joining forces. The merger of a leader in Enterprise Linux, Edge Computing, and AI with a leader in Enterprise Kubernetes Management will disrupt the market to help customers accelerate their digital transformation journeys. Only the combination of SUSE and Rancher will have the depth of a globally supported and 100% true open source portfolio, including cloud-native technologies, to help our customers seamlessly innovate across their business from the edge to the core to the cloud.”
Broader portfolio and increased global presence and innovation power
Gartner predicts that the growing adoption of cloud-native applications and infrastructure will increase the use of container management to over 75 per cent of large enterprises in mature economies by 2024. It will go up from 35 per cent in 2020.
Sheng Liang, Rancher CEO said, “Rancher and SUSE will help organisations control their cloud native futures. Our leading Kubernetes platform with SUSE’s broad open source software solutions creates a powerful combination, enabling IT and Operations leaders worldwide to best meet the needs of their customers wherever they are on their digital transformation journey from the data center to cloud to edge.”
The companies said that following regulatory approvals and the acquisition’s close, customers of both companies will benefit from a broader portfolio and increased global presence and innovation power. It added that SUSE customers will benefit from the robust capabilities of Rancher’s cloud native technologies. Rancher’s customers will gain access to SUSE’s global support network and broad open source portfolio.
SUSE said that this acquisition is the first step in the company’s growth strategy since becoming a fully independent software company in March 2019. In the second quarter of its fiscal year 2020, SUSE saw ACV (annual contract value) bookings increase 30 per cent year over year and global cloud revenue reaching 70 per cent year over year.
Di Donato adds, “Our vision to enable better futures and measurable value for our customers and partners is what guides our decisions and drives our growth. This acquisition enhances our ability to offer a more comprehensive portfolio, greater customer choice, and no vendor lock-in. It will also enable us to play an even more strategic role with cloud service providers, independent hardware vendors, systems integrators, and value-added resellers who are eager to provide greater customer experiences.”
