Big moves continue to be made in the fast growing cloud space—a market projected to be over $20B in four years. Just this morning IBM announced that it’s spending $440M to acquire cloud-based analytics software maker DemandTech.

The acquisition of DemandTec will extend IBM’s Smarter Commerce initiative by adding cloud-based price, promotion and other merchandising and marketing analytics to help companies better define the best price points and product mix based on customer buying trends.

Organizations are struggling to meet the demands of rapidly shifting customer buying patterns in the era of mobile and social networks. This new digital marketplace requires companies to be highly responsive to consumer demands on the fly. Whether it’s setting and executing the right pricing strategy or the ability to automatically adjust pricing based on online and offline data, being able to rapidly shift to market changes has become a key competitive advantage for global businesses.

IBM estimates the market opportunity for Smarter Commerce at $20 billion in software alone. Extending these capabilities to the cloud gives organizations immediate access to consumer information, providing instant return on investment.

IBM—who has a 5-year OEM deal with Nirvanix for enterprise cloud storage—said it acquired DemandTech for its ability to enable businesses to examine different customer buying scenarios, both online and in retail locations, to make better decisions on customer purchasing intentions. We can see IBM looking at all of these different elements of its cloud strategy and beginning to integrate them into one cohesive whole. The important point is that IBM is executing while its equally big competitors are stumbling around.

Meanwhile IBM partner Nirvanix this morning announced another win in the enterprise cloud storage space with a deal with Relativity Media, the studio behind the blood ’n guts actioner “Immortals” that’s raking in hundreds of millions at the international box office.

Relativity Media is a hot young studio that’s shaking up the entertainment space with hits like “The Social Network” and “The Fighter” and is innovating in IT too with its shift to cloud storage. Many younger companies who aren’t stuck dealing with old storage farms are eager to move to the cloud because of the ability to get projects done faster—and the benefits of the pay-by-the-drink pricing model.