IBM and eBay Enterprise to Improve Magento's Global Presence

Long before Carl Icahn pushed the hand of eBay CEO John Donahoe to split from PayPal (News - Alert), the company had acquired Magento in 2011. That acquisition is beginning to pay off as it gets integrated in to eBay Enterprise and become a growing piece of the company’s ecommerce platform. In order to improve the Magento Hosting Partner ecosystem and increase its expansion globally, IBM (News - Alert) and eBay announced an agreement to introduce Magento's ecommerce clients to IBM's enterprise cloud.

By entering in to this agreement with IBM, Magento will have access to a cloud platform that is used by 24 of the top 25 Fortune 500 companies, and give it the support it needs for its clients in every major global market.

With more than 240,000 retailers worldwide, Magento serves a wide range of customers across different industries, with companies such as BOXPARK, Munchkin, Rebecca Minkoff, Harvey Nichols, 3M (News - Alert) and many others using its software.

The IBM cloud solution will give Magento the ability to provide its customers a platform with unlimited scalability for new deployments and expansion with lower CAPEX delivering software and infrastructure options that can be tailored to address the need of each client.

“Ecommerce is a key vertical business for IBM Cloud. Partnering with eBay (News - Alert) Enterprise will better position our joint customers to realize their growth goals by leveraging their Magento platform running on IBM's cloud infrastructure, which together will deliver unparalleled performance, automation and global reach,” said Jim Comfort, general manager, IBM Cloud Services.

The IBM SoftLayer infrastructure connects more than 40 cloud centers with a network that integrates distinct public, private, hybrid and internal management networks for better access and higher speeds at lower total networking costs. This type of access comes with a global cloud infrastructure platform designed to guarantee security, resiliency and efficiency.

Magento will have access to a powerful API with 240 services and 3,400 methods for higher levels of customization, control and flexibility. This includes integration for seamless provisioning, management, monitoring and information retrieval with third-party and custom software so it can control and manage its cloud directly on an ongoing basis.

“Our partnership with IBM, a proven leader in cloud, will provide Magento clients of all sizes another cost-effective, scalable and secure hosting infrastructure on a global scale,” said Craig Hayman, president, eBay Enterprise.

One of the reasons for the split between eBay and PayPal was based on the eroding market share of eBay as companies such as Alibaba continued to emerge, while PayPal was growing. Entering in to an agreement with IBM is a sure fire way to increase Magento’s global presence, and only time will tell if eBay will be able to help Magento grow as it did PayPal.