Last week Rackspace made some headlines by hiring an investment bank to presumably evaluate a possible sale. While there has been plenty of speculation about the cloud computing market and which companies would benefit the most from acquiring Rackspace, I have a few of my own thoughts about which companies might actually want to buy the managed hosting provider.
IBM
I list IBM first because I actually think they are the least likely to buy Rackspace, but I feel they must be mentioned. Since acquiring cloud hosting provider SoftLayer, IBM has been enjoying their new service offering for IaaS. Could their success with SoftLayer prompt them to also want to buy Rackspace? I doubt it. Other than adding more revenue and customers, such a purchase would not likely be accretive enough for IBM shareholders to justify the expense.
HP
HP is an interesting option since they do not currently have a "SoftLayer" type of service offering and combined with their server business, this is the type of acquisition that would bring them into the cloud hosting and IaaS business the fastest. HP, which has been largely absent from the managed services and cloud computing community for the last several years, would most certainly increase its street credit by purchasing Rackspace.
Cisco
Cisco is an interesting choice since it has a very deep integration with managed services and cloud computing but does not currently have any hosting solutions. Most of Cisco's managed services and cloud offerings center around Unified Communications, but fall short when it comes to infrastructure capabilities.
Dell
While Dell has made quite a lot of MSP and cloud related acquisitions over the last several years, it still is facing a shrinking PC market and has not yet figured out (at least publicly) what it's relevance is in the cloud computing world. Furthermore, several of its MSP related purchases have been somewhat disappointing (i.e., SilverBack and Quest). So, would Dell want to gamble again and make a play for Rackspace?
I'm sure there are other companies that may be interested in buying Rackspace. Some of the North American telecommunications giants come to mind, but these four companies are my leading contenders. Basically, Rackspace will probably go to the company with the most to gain from obtaining infrastructure (i.e., cloud computing) capabilities. Who do you think will buy Rackspace?
