Ericsson (NASDAQ:ERIC) today announced it has agreed to acquire a majority stake in Apcera, a U.S.-based enterprise services company and creator of the next-generation platform as-a-service (PaaS) called Continuum(TM) which works across cloud, on premise and hybrid environments. In addition, Ericsson commits to significant funding toward development of next-generation technology as well as sales channel and ecosystem creation.

Cloud technology is disrupting the global ICT infrastructure market, and service providers must modernize to provide more value to their customers. With the addition of Apcera's PaaS technology to Ericsson's Cloud offerings, Ericsson will deliver complete cloud automation to run all workloads and use cases, while providing complete control for infrastructure.

Ericsson is the leader in policy-based automation and governance of telecom networks. The acquisition shows the company's ambition in extending that same approach into operator and enterprise clouds. Cloud is one of the strategic areas Ericsson is targeting for growth, and establishing leadership in PaaS is a key to its success.

Jason Hoffman, Vice President and Head of Product Line Cloud Software, Ericsson says: "The beauty of the cloud is that it is much more efficient to develop, roll-out and operate applications. To realize the full potential, cloud environments need security and governance, which our partnership with Guardtime and our acquisition of a majority stake in Apcera provides. With these technologies in place, enterprises and individuals can trust the integrity and the confidentiality of their infrastructure."

Derek Collison, founder and Chief Executive Officer of Apcera says: "We welcome Ericsson's backing. With a history of transforming the world's most demanding businesses and the global ability to deploy and scale critical infrastructure, Ericsson will enable us to accelerate our innovation of Continuum and provide enterprises the next-generation platform that enables them to achieve a significantly faster time-to-market as they deploy, orchestrate and govern a diverse set of workloads, both on premise and in the cloud."

Apcera was founded in 2012 and is based in San Francisco, California, in the United States. Apcera is the creator and provider of Continuum(TM), an IT platform-as-a-service that enables enterprises to securely and transparently control the allocation and consumption of IT resources on premise and in the cloud.

The acquisition is expected to close during Q4 2014, subject to customary closing conditions. Apcera will operate as a standalone company after the closing and will be consolidated financially under Segment Networks.

Source: ERICSSON