WhatsApp is one of IBM’s high-profile customers for its cloud service, which lags behind market leader Amazon Web Services, as well as Microsoft Azure.
The WhatsApp move, which could begin later this year, would result in IBM losing a high profile customer for its public cloud. A source claims that WhatsApp has been one of IBM’s top five public cloud customers in terms of revenue, and was at one point spending $2 million a month with IBM.
IBM’s public cloud business lags behind Amazon Web Services (AWS), which is on top with 33 percent of the market in April, as well as Microsoft‘s Azure cloud, according to Synergy Research.
Facebook acquired WhatsApp for $19 billion in 2014 and has left the app running on the servers it has always used. Other companies that Facebook has acquired over the years initially used similar IBM SoftLayer servers, and Facebook was quick to bring them in-house, another source said. But with WhatsApp, Facebook has taken a much longer time.
