Palantir (NYSE: PLTR) and IBM (NYSE: IBM) announced a major partnership today. The deal will see IBM offer Palantir technologies as part of its cloud data services and could dramatically expand the sales reach of the newly publicized data analytics company.
Palantir shares jumped 10% at the opening of the market today and closed with a gain of 5.9%. The gains of IBM’s shares with the announcement were more subdued, with Big Blue’s share price rising 1.5% at the close.
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IBM is launching a new product offering that leverages Palantir’s Foundry analytics platform to complement its IBM Cloud Pak for Data, Watson and Red Hat OpenShift services. Big Blue intends to reinvent itself after the acquisition of Red Hat, and IBM senior vice president of software, cloud and data, Rob Thomas, believes that partnerships like the one it has entered into with Palantir will play a driving role for cloud and intelligence IBM’s artificial business. But it is not surprising that the market is more excited about what the business potentially means to Palantir.
Writing about the partnership announcement today, Bloomberg’s Lizette Chapman described the deal as giving Palantir access to a sales force of more than 2,500 people, a dramatic jump from its current sales force of 30 people. Palantir has mainly focused on attracting customers from large companies, but it has also been experimenting with its product offerings and price levels to reach a wider audience. The partnership with IBM will allow the company to reach a wide base of potential customers who can use its data software services.