14 DAY TRIAL // IBM has announced the acquisition of StrongLoop, a California-based company that developed Node.js-powered technologies for API-based solutions.
The deal's terms are undisclosed, but the reasons behind it are quite simple. In recent years, Node.js, with its capability of letting JavaScript run in server-side environments has become a mature, reliable, and performant solution for running various types of technologies that previously needed more powerful languages like Java, Python, or Ruby.
Node.js has grown so much that while a few years back most cloud services were offering hosting for PHP, Java, Python, or Ruby projects, nowadays Node has become a must-have technology for any cloud-based service.
Who is StrongLoop?
StrongLoop, a company which provides products, consulting, training, and support for building APIs using Node.js, has been considered one of the hot commodities on the Node.js market.
By acquiring StrongLoop, IBM has enhanced its cloud services with the tools needed for JavaScript developers to create APIs that interconnect various of their products.
APIs, an afterthought 10 or 20 years ago, have become the central technology in today's interconnected world, and more so with the rise of the Internet of Things (IoT), a society and living model in which devices are linked to others through a server or cloud services.
StrongLoop will accelerate IBM's API economy
StrongLoop will provide IBM's clients with a set of starter tools to get their APIs off the ground and help them develop anything from mobile apps to IoT interconnecting software.
IBM's interest in the Node.js community is relatively new, but once the company decided to go with this avenue, it delved deep in the Node world.
Currently, IBM is a Platinum Member of the Node.js Foundation, and Todd Moore, IBM's Vice President of Open Technology, is currently a board member on the Foundation's Board of Directors.
On the other side, StrongLoop made a name for itself in the Node community through its LoopBack MVC framework for Node.js, and after it acquired the Express Node.js middleware framework from prodigious Node.js programmer TJ Holowaychuk.
