IBM Nears Roughly $11 Billion Deal for Confluent

$11B? Who wants to hazard a guess as to how AK is going to pay for this?

https://www.wsj.com/business/deals/ibm-nears-roughly-11-billion-deal-for-confluent-276f52d8

Deal for data-infrastructure company could come as soon as Monday

By: Lauren Thomas
Dec. 7, 2025 10:01 pm ET

International Business Machines IBM is in advanced talks to acquire data-infrastructure company Confluent CFLT for around $11 billion, according to people familiar with the matter.

The details

A deal could be announced as soon as Monday, the people said, cautioning that the talks could still fall apart.

Confluent had a market value of around $8 billion as of Friday, while IBM’s was around $290 billion.

Confluent provides technology that helps manage streams of real-time data used in big artificial-intelligence models. An AI bo-m has boosted the need for its capabilities from companies in sectors including retail, technology and financial services.

The context

An acquisition of Confluent would be the biggest deal for IBM in recent memory as it repositions its business around AI.

Last year, it agreed to buy cloud-software provider HashiCorp for $6.4 billion, in a deal that pushed it further into fast-growing cloud and AI offerings.

In October, IBM posted higher revenue in the third quarter, boosted by higher-than-expected growth in its consulting business. IBM in November said it would lay off thousands of employees before the end of the year, joining other technology companies that are repositioning themselves in the age of artificial intelligence.

IBM has been competing with Google, Microsoft and a number of startups to build computers that exceed the abilities of the best conventional ones. It is working on larger clusters of quantum chips that it expects will enable large-scale computing in the next five years.

Chief Executive Arvind Krishna recently said IBM has used AI—specifically AI agents—to replace the work of a couple of hundred human-resources workers. That has enabled it to hire more programmers and salespeople.

Technology has been one of the busiest sectors for dealmaking this year. Google parent Alphabet struck a $32 billion deal for cybersecurity startup Wiz. Palo Alto Networks agreed to a $25 billion deal for CyberArk. And Salesforce struck an $8 billion deal for data-management software firm Informatica.

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53 replies (most recent on top)

@cm It’s a smart move, but maybe a bit overdue. There is big overlap and cost to take out, aided by Confluent being a bit cash rich

@ca

None of the IBM Kafka offerings have gotten any traction since they came out... this is the reason why IBM is buying Confluent so they can control Kafka. Not to mention that Kafka is eating IBM MQ's lunch all the time! Looks like now it is about to change!

People are going to say companies can still do Kafka on their own (non-Confluent) but Enterprise customers have no appetite for that. So, looks like IBM is going to be the winner, well at least for a while until it (IBM) totally destroys Kafka and some other open source messaging product(s) take(s) over.

@c8 Well, given IBM (inc RH) has 3 Kafka offerings already (1 cloud, 2 software) with far less market share, then I think it’s clear where the at risk people are…

Good luck to their employees

Alvind is a silly goose

Alvind needs to go
I got RA’d because they cry the blues about money and that DEI Lackey spends 11 billion he doesn’t have

IBM executives are like headless chicken, they have no vision. They get drunk and dream of some nonsense.
IBM executives ... Last year: IBM is leading the cloud (public/private/hybrid ... any gibberish anyone on some heavy hallucinogen can dream of) . Last week: we are champions of AI. This week: AI is junk, we are leaders of Quantum computing ... Tomorrow .. is a wild guess .... it will on which hallucinogen, these id--ts take ...

No they are paying cash

And another $11B added to the debt.

Can we get a moment of silence for our Confluent brethren? They are about to experience a whole different type of Kafka.

Heads are going to be rolling in Q1 to partly offset this purchase.

Confluent has around 3000+ employees, expect that amount of IBMers to be laid off in the US in Q1, at a minimum.

This is the IBM business model. I saw a comment somewhere else that summed it up well. IBM is still in business like AOL is still in business.

@OP when companies like Google, Salesforce, Palo Alto etc. buy up smaller companies, it is a win for them. When IBM buys a smaller company they overpay, over manage and make it into Vindaloo curry slop in a matter of a year or two. For Alvind and his Pipmunks it's just Business as usual - SSDD.

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IBM Nears Roughly $11 Billion Deal for Confluent

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