Acquisition completed: IBM integrates HashiCorp into its software division
Under the umbrella of IBM Software, the HashiCorp products will expand the portfolio of automation software and open up new synergies.
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- Dr. Udo Seidel
For HashiCorp, the company behind popular security and infrastructure management tools such as Vault and Terraform, a new chapter in its company history is beginning: the one under the IBM umbrella. Just under a year ago, IBM announced that it was seriously considering the purchase of HashiCorp – A few hours later, it was confirmed that this was actually happening. In principle, everything was already in the bag in April 2024. However, the formal processes behind a company take a few years. In the case of IBM and HashiCorp, however, the acquisition has now been officially completed, as Armon Dadgar underlines in a blog post. HashiCorp, which was once founded by Mitchell Hashimoto and himself, thus joins the ranks of the many acquisitions made by IT giant IBM. The most popular ones from the recent past are Apptio and, of course, Red Hat.
What role does HashiCorp play in the IBM Group?
But what does this mean for the HashiCorp ecosystem and its users? There are various aspects to consider. First of all, how does IBM deal with the whole construct of HashiCorp? Big Blue could follow the often-cited “Red Hat path”, whereby the original company – remains largely intact, at least from the outside –. Why change a successful model? The Red Hat logo, the products, and Red Hat events still exist today. However, IBM also offers additional services based on the knowledge, expertise, and software of the Linux distributor.
On the other hand, it is also conceivable that IBM will fully integrate the acquired company and allow the HashiCorp identity to expire. At present, it is not yet clear which direction the IT giant will take. The “Red Hat way” seems recommendable – but also has its challenges.
Terraform, an Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) tool that has established itself as the standard for automated IT infrastructure provisioning, could play a major role in this. This has made HashiCorp big and well-known. However, it was precisely in this environment that the licensing change of direction in 2023 caused a great deal of unrest in the open-source camp when HashiCorp announced that it was abandoning the Mozilla Public License 2.0 (MPL 2.0) for Terraform & Co. Since then, the less permissive Business Source License (BSL) 1.1 has applied. Unfortunately, this discussion has not developed any further since the announcement of the IBM takeover, although it has fueled the Terraform fork OpenTofu adopted by the Linux Foundation. IBM still has to position itself clearly here and set the course for the final decision as to whether HashiCorp will go the “Red Hat way” or not.
The decisive factor here could be that HashiCorp has always been much more than Terraform. In addition to the IaC tool, the company has a number of other important tools for IT professionals in its portfolio, including Vault. The simple management of passwords and comparable secrets has been an important topic since the mid-2010s, and has gained even more momentum with the Zero Trust bandwagon. With Vault, IT managers have a platform at their fingertips that is supported by many software manufacturers and can even be used independently of the chosen cloud service provider. According to some experts, this makes Vault the real crown jewel of HashiCorp – and is another explanation for IBM's interest in the company.
The concrete future remains open
However, even now that the takeover has been formally completed, the specific strategy remains unclear. While Armon Dadgar speaks in his announcement of HashiCorp and IBM management following a common vision, he remains vague on the implementation: HashiCorp will continue to operate as a division of IBM Software “with the same mission, but on a larger stage”. Mitchell Hashimoto and he continue to pursue the goal of bringing HashiCorp software to every data center. The agenda includes a closer connection of Terraform and Vault to IBM's AI-supported automation software portfolio, which also includes Ansible and OpenShift from Red Hat.
This means that those responsible can now concentrate on the important issues again. These include licenses, software sales, operating models, existing and potential new use cases and market positioning. It remains to be hoped that IBM or the HashiCorp department will be able to provide answers to all open questions quickly.
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