Reflections on CliQr’s Acquisition by Cisco

Today, Cisco announced its intent to acquire CliQr, for a reported $260M. This acquisition validates the importance that Cloud Management Platforms (CMPs) play in enterprise IT shops, forming the foundation of a hybrid cloud strategy.

What prompted this move on CliQr’s part? Perhaps they were feeling the heat from the likes of CloudBolt and decided it was time to retreat to safety. In head-to-head engagements, CloudBolt consistently beats CliQr (and all other solutions) in technical evaluations of hybrid cloud managers / CMPs. This includes evaluations from individual enterprise companies that have done their own product bake-offs (such as GE, Williams-Sonoma, Blackboard, and Waste Management), industry awards such as the Modern Infrastructure Impact Award for best CMP, and a number of analyst and third-party comparisons.

People frequently remark on CloudBolt’s unparalleled simplicity, flexibility, and extensibility. They’re also impressed with the breadth and depth of our integration with virtualization technologies, public clouds, configuration managers (such as Puppet and Chef), and various technologies & tools including Infoblox, ServiceNow, Slack, HP OO, Docker, vRealize Orchestrator, and many others.

It’s unclear what effect CliQr’s acquisition will have on their product roadmap and current customers. Much of the value of CMPs comes from vendor neutrality – their non-partisan ability to integrate with the vast range of IT systems from all vendors. It will be interesting to see if CliQr will maintain this kind of neutrality. Will they, for instance, invest in integration with technologies that are competitive to Cisco’s offerings such as VMware’s NSX?

In the meantime, CloudBolt will continue to lead the way in hybrid / multi-cloud management and to drive IT transformation forward.