Cloudify to Separate from GigaSpaces, Focus On Cloud, Telecom

**Editor’s Note: Please click here for a recap of the biggest channel-impacting merger and acquisition news from May and June.**

GigaSpaces Technologies plans to spin off Cloudify, its orchestration and cloud management platform business unit, into a new company focused on the market for management and orchestration of cloud applications and network functions virtualization (NFV).

Cloudify’s Nati Shalom

The spinoff allows the new Cloudify entity to dedicate engineering, product development, marketing and customer support activities to the cloud market segment. Planning for the move began in 2016, driven by growth of the Cloudify product line in core enterprise cloud markets, as well as success in entering the carrier network orchestration market.

Nati Shalom, Cloudify’s co-founder and chief technology officer, tells Channel Partners that many SIs such as Techmahindra, Atos, Capgemini, Kapsh and TCS already are working with Cloudify on joint opportunities and are “planning to use Cloudify as part of their solution stack and as a differentiator for NFV opportunities.”

GigaSpaces will focus solely on growing its in-memory computing (IMC) business, he said.

“Cloudify and GigaSpaces have separate channel partners,” Shalom said. “Some of the partners support both companies, but the majority are a different set of partners.”

In 2016, GigaSpaces open-sourced all products and shifted to an open-source support business model. The GigaSpaces IMC business unit launched InsightEdge, which leverages the Apache Spark cluster computing project, while Cloudify launched Apache Project ARIA, an open-source orchestration library to accelerate TOSCA adoption.

“Success has led us here,” said Zeev Bikowsky, GigaSpaces’ CEO. “Recent growth in both product lines is a testament to the exceptional work of our employees and the ideal timing of our offerings in two very different markets. This spinoff will not only benefit our customers, employees, partners and the Cloudify open-source community, but will also enable greater clarity and focus for our current and possibly future investors.”

While the GigaSpaces XAP/InsightEdge and Cloudify businesses already are functioning as separate business units, the structural spinoff is still subject to various regulatory, tax and other approvals.

“We estimate that this process will be completed within a few weeks,” Shalom said.

Also this month, GigaSpaces and Magic Software Enterprises announced a strategic partnership.