The new Apptio integrations, tools and capabilities announced at the TBM Conference 2023 follow IBM’s acquisition of Apptio in June.

IBM and Apptio have announced the first round of results from IBM’s acquisition of Apptio, including new Apptio tools and capabilities and integration between IBM Turbonomic and Apptio Cloudability.

“With the first technical product integration between IBM Turbonomic and Apptio Cloudability, you’re seeing our shared commitment to solving complex challenges and helping organizations maximize the value of their cloud investment, while providing elasticity and optimal performance for their cloud applications,” said Bill Lobig, VP, Product Management, IBM Automation, in an email to TechRepublic in October.

IBM announced its plans to bring business management and FinOps software company Apptio on board in June 2023 to boost IBM’s FinOps and cloud cost optimization portfolios. IBM entered into a $4.6 billion agreement in cash to acquire Apptio from Vista Equity Partners.

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New product integrations between Apptio Cloudability and IBM Turbonomic

Key optimization metrics from IBM’s Turbonomic can now be visualized within Apptio’s Cloudability interface, IBM announced on October 24 at the TBM Conference 2023. This lets engineers automate some elements of their collaborations with FinOps teams.

“Organizations are under pressure to optimize their technology investments either by cutting costs or redirecting those funds to innovation, whether they’re well along their TBM [technology business management] journey or just starting to move away from manual spreadsheets,” said Eugene Khvostov, chief product officer at Apptio, in a press release. “What we’re announcing today is an evolution of the Apptio portfolio to meet practitioners where they are and give them a path to reach their long-term goals.”

Apptio expands FinOps portfolio

Apptio announced other new FinOps tools and capabilities on October 24:

• Apptio Cost Management, available now, is a tool for reporting and analyzing technology spend.
• Cloudability Financial Planning, which is expected to be available later in Q4, adds forecasts, streamlined collaboration and team accountability tracking to Cloudability for cloud budget decision-makers.
• Cloudability can now analyze the cost contribution of computing resources.
• Cloudability’s container cost insights capabilities can now be linked to RedHat OpenShift on AWS.
• The Targetprocess Labor Financial Management solution now links Apptio Targetprocess data into other technology finance processes such as labor allocations, labor capitalization and labor forecasts.

All of the new tools and capabilities will be available globally.

IBM and Apptio’s proposals for future integrations

IBM also plans to use Apptio services and data to bolster other services Big Blue has acquired over the years, including Red Hat and IBM Consulting, and its automation and AI portfolio in general. IBM’s watsonx AI training model will specifically benefit from Apptio’s anonymized FinOps data. Apptio has used machine learning since 2018, when ML was added to the Apptio Technology Business Management Unified Model.

“The acquisition of Apptio is a continuation of IBM’s deep focus and investment in hybrid cloud and AI and is expected to drive significant synergies across several key growth areas for IBM, including FinOps,” Kareem Yusuf, senior vice president, product management and growth, IBM Software, told TechRepublic in an email.

“Apptio has transformed how leading organizations optimize their IT spend and performance for better outcomes,” said Robert F. Smith, founder, chairman and CEO of Vista Equity Partners, in a press release. “We are proud of these shared accomplishments and look forward to seeing Apptio further evolve with IBM.”

What is Apptio?

Apptio makes finance operations and business management software-as-a-service applications. It gives CTOs and/or CFOs better visibility into their spending across different parts of their work, including hybrid and multicloud environments and labor. IT budget holders can then make decisions based on the data Apptio produces in order to improve operations and budgeting.

Apptio was founded in 2007 and acquired by Vista Equity Partners in 2018. It has more than 1,300 employees. Its three core services are:

• ApptioOne, which can be used to analyze, optimize and plan IT spending.
• Apptio Cloudability, which provides financial management best practices to multicloud and SaaS infrastructure.
• Apptio Targetprocess, which offers investment planning.

Apptio services already integrate with Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform, Salesforce, ServiceNow, Oracle and SAP.

Three recent acquisitions by Apptio also add more tools to IBM’s tool belt: Apptio acquired Cloudability, Cloudwiry and Targetprocess within the last five years.

What does the acquisition mean for enterprise IT?

IBM’s acquisition of Apptio occured partially in response to a growing need for technology companies to keep tighter leashes on budgets. IBM saw an under 1% year-over-year increase in revenue in Q1, Reuters reported in June. Apptio’s services to help IT departments optimize how they spend money could be a smart investment in a time when economic uncertainty and slowing growth are on many business decision-makers’ minds.

SEE: IBM snatched up cloud data security management firm Polar Security in May. (TechRepublic)

In addition, the acquisition goes hand-in-hand with the increasing use of hybrid cloud environments, for which it can be difficult to find unified data.

“Our customers are evolving to a complex digital-first, hybrid world where technology investments are distributed and decentralized, but all innovation must be aligned with clear business outcomes,” explained Sunny Gupta, Apptio co-founder and CEO, in a press release in June.

“Moving forward, we’ll continue to build upon the synergies of the IBM and Apptio portfolio, extending our FinOps capabilities and offerings, while also integrating IBM’s watsonx AI and data platform with Apptio’s $450 billion in anonymized IT spend data to unlock innovation, insight and value,” Lobig said in October.