CenturyLink, which boosted its cloud computing efforts with last year’s purchase of Bellevue-based Tier 3, now reportedly is getting ready to make an even bigger move in the sector. The high-speed Internet provider is looking to acquire cloud hosting giant Rackspace, a San Antonio-based company with a market value of $5.33 billion, according to Bloomberg News. If the deal goes through, CenturyLink would compete more aggressively with Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services and Google cloud platforms.
Rackspace, with sales last year of $1.53 billion, hired investment banking firm Morgan Stanley earlier this year to explore strategic opportunities. Shares of the company surged last month after a report circulated that H-P might be interested in Rackspace, though Re/code later reported that the rumors were not true.
