When Ecosystems Collide (In a Good Way)

Even if you’ve been hiding under a rock, you probably know by now that F5 is quite enthusiastic about the announced NGINX acquisition. Can you blame us for feeling that way? This is a fantastic move to benefit customers, the open source community and, of course, the dedicated teams at both NGINX and F5. This much, you’ve heard. So why chime in with my own words? Simply put, I wanted to take a moment to detail why those of us in the F5 alliances organization are eagerly looking forward to this pairing as well.

First off, we’re excited about the cultural fit of the teams and the complementary technologies each company brings to the table. The energy starts there. Being in F5’s alliances organization, we are focused on an ecosystem of technology partners and customers, and there is a marked sense of anticipation for how this “joining of forces” will enhance our alliances ecosystem in both big and small ways. For one, the adjacent markets each of our technologies serve (NetOps and DevOps) mean that there is a significantly broader range of solutions we will be able to develop with our partners for joint customers. Creating holistic solutions to deliver truly end-to-end application services from the coding of the app all the way to the user will put us collectively in the position of better serving the needs of a larger set of teams, functions, and organizations. THAT is an enticing proposition, and one we are eager to undertake along with our joint partners.

In speaking about the acquisition, one of the points we’ve been emphasizing is that a combined company will be uniquely situated to “bridge the divide” between traditional and modern applications. The very ethos of alliances is to find ways to identify and materially deliver more value for customers. Bringing these organizations together with the offerings of technology partners will give customers even more ways to accomplish this, with respect to their individual infrastructure goals and business priorities.

Combining the two companies’ efforts will also establish a broader path to contribute to the open source communities that are important to our customers and partners, as well as the industry at large. We are looking to build on the successful and long-standing tradition of open source community engagement NGINX is known for. Working together with a world-class team who has additional expertise in both the art and the science of open source innovation will increase the ease with which both our customers and our partners can interact and innovate with us.

And while I would like to say more, there are some topics we simply can’t dig into before the acquisition closes. So, for now, I’ll just say that we are very excited about what F5 and NGINX can do together collaboratively with our ecosystem partners, and we look forward to showing you more in the days to come!