CenturyLink (CTL) Acquires Hybrid Cloud Vendor ElasticBox

AMZN MSFT IBM

CenturyLink Inc. has acquired cloud app management specialist, ElasticBox, in a transaction that will allow its customers to manage applications across 12 different cloud providers including the likes of Amazon.com Inc.’s (AMZN - Free Report) Amazon Web Services, International Business Machines Corporation’s (IBM - Free Report) Softlayer service, Microsoft Corporation’s (MSFT - Free Report) Azure and Alphabet Inc. Compute Engine. Through ElasticBox, CenturyLink will be able to provide a one-stop solution to all its business enterprise customers who use different cloud facilities for different processes by allowing the user to deploy multiple cloud endpoints.

CenturyLink’s Strategies

Over the last three years, CenturyLink has been trying all means to establish itself as a global leader in cloud infrastructure and hosted IT solutions arena designed for enterprise customers. Further, the company’s strong network capabilities, integrated hosting and network solutions are likely to promote growth in the cloud business.

In the increasingly complex world of cloud computing, the ElasticBox acquisition is aimed to allow CenturyLink to mix and match different cloud service providers and effectively manage applications, thereby making things easier for enterprise IT organizations. The company’s strategy focuses on hybrid cloud management in terms of integrating on and off premises resources, and it believes that this can help customers manage a multi-public cloud world through its network backbone.

The Bottom Line

The ElasticBox takeover is expected to improve the scalability and flexibility of CenturyLink’s cloud services. Backed by its robust network across the country, we believe that CenturyLink’s efforts on integrating network and managed services into the multi-cloud platform will distinguish it from other players in the market in addition to boosting its top line.

CenturyLink currently has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report >>

Zacks Names "Single Best Pick to Double"

From thousands of stocks, 5 Zacks experts each have chosen their favorite to skyrocket +100% or more in months to come. From those 5, Director of Research Sheraz Mian hand-picks one to have the most explosive upside of all.

It’s a little-known chemical company that’s up 65% over last year, yet still dirt cheap. With unrelenting demand, soaring 2022 earnings estimates, and $1.5 billion for repurchasing shares, retail investors could jump in at any time.

This company could rival or surpass other recent Zacks’ Stocks Set to Double like Boston Beer Company which shot up +143.0% in little more than 9 months and NVIDIA which boomed +175.9% in one year.

Free: See Our Top Stock and 4 Runners Up >>