IBM has completed its $4.6 billion acquisition of financial and operational IT management and optimization (FinOps) software company Apptio Inc. after receiving all required regulatory approvals. The acquisition brings together Apptio’s FinOps offerings, including ApptioOne, Cloudability and Targetprocess, and IBM’s automation portfolio of Turbonomic, AIOps and Instana to give clients a “virtual command center” for managing, optimizing and automating technology spending decisions.

With AI and foundation models top of mind for clients and partners, IBM will also augment its watsonx AI and data platform with Apptio’s $450 billion in anonymized IT spend data, unlocking new innovation, insight and value.

“The combination of Apptio products and IBM’s IT automation portfolio will give businesses a 360-degree technology management platform they can use to optimize and automate decisions across their IT landscapes,” said Rob Thomas, Senior Vice President, Software and Chief Commercial Officer, IBM. “We are bringing together market-leading and best-in-class solutions to continue to reshape IT from a cost center to a true competitive advantage, powered by automation and AI.”

Starting immediately, clients can leverage the early integration between Apptio and IBM through their Cloudability and Turbonomic offerings. This is an important first step as IBM looks to drive significant synergy across several key growth areas, including automation, Red Hat, IBM Consulting, and IBM’s broader AI portfolio.

Cloudability gives organizations the data, insights and recommendations needed to understand and eliminate waste from their cloud spend, while Turbonomic generates trustworthy optimization decisions that can be automated to unlock true cloud elasticity, getting rid of overprovisioning to protect performance. Together, these products can give clients full coverage for the “Inform,” “Optimize” and “Operate” stages of the FinOps Framework, providing what they need to control cloud spend without slowing innovation or negatively impacting operational performance.