(NYSE: IBM) acquires a lot of companies. Many of these acquisitions are small enough that the details are never disclosed. Occasionally, IBM splurges on a major deal meant to drive its hybrid cloud and AI strategies forward. Prior to this week, the last one was the $34 billion acquisition of software company Red Hat.

On Monday, IBM agreed to pay $4.6 billion for FinOps software provider Apptio. FinOps software covers financial and operational IT management and optimization, helping businesses optimize their technology spending, reduce costs, and generally keep tabs on where money is going across their IT organization.

IBM will use cash on hand to pay for the deal, which is expected to close in the second half of 2023. Here's why the acquisition makes a lot of sense.

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Source Fool.com