Updated with full video – see below.

On today’s SiliconANGLE Live NewsDesk Show, (see live feed below or visit youtube.com/siliconangle to watch on-demand), we discuss IBM’s reported $2 billion acquisition of Softlayer and its plans for the public cloud.

This week IBM made an estimated two-billion dollar acquisition of Softlayer. In a story originally cracked by the Wall Street Journal, ‘Big Blue’ is planning to create a new cloud services division within its Global Services unit, with SoftLayer continuing to operate as a separate business entity inside of that. Erich Clementi, senior vice president of IBM’s technology services, said in a statement that the acquisition will help IBM to beef up its ability to integrate public and private clouds for its clients, enabling significant performance and security benefits for SMBs.

From SiliconANGLE’s own Mike Wheatley,

The goal for IBM is to be able to compete in the public cloud market with services like Amazon, although it’ll do so by playing to its own strengths – i.e., with its marketing, procurement and customer service software delivered through the cloud, and with unique products like its Watson artificial-intelligence software, rather than by trying to match Amazon and Google’s storage and processing capabilities.

The acquisition of SoftLayer marks a departure from IBM’s previous cloud strategy, which until the acquisition had been largely focused on private cloud offerings. Acquiring SoftLayer for a reported $2 billion shows IBM is aggressively going after the public cloud.

Joining us now to tell us more about the SoftLayer acquisition and what it means for IBM’s public cloud strategy is Wikibon Senior Analyst Dave Vellante. (See the live broadcast, embed below ~ if you missed today’s topic, check our YouTube channel for archived clips.)

Some of the things we’ll be discussing with include:

1. The specifics as to why SoftLayer was so appealing to IBM.
2. The infrastructure as a service (IaaS) market is a “race to zero”, so if margins are so low, IBM must have bigger plans.
3. Whether or not this move by IBM has a big impact on the competitive landscape.
4. Outlook for IBM’s business after acquisition.