Why IBM Is Buying a Digital Marketing Agency

Since March 2014, IBM iX has quietly doubled its workforce to 10,000 specialists in everything from e-commerce advice to mobile development—including 1,000 creative design professionals branding experts. IBM iX’s hiring spree has been fueled by the company’s strategic partnerships with Apple (with which it is building industry specific mobile apps), Box (content management and workflow), Facebook (marketing intelligence), and Twitter (data analytics).
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And though it already ranks as the world’s largest digital agency, ahead of boutique firms like SapientNitro and Razorfish, the group wants even more of that work. 
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Over the past four years, competitive tensions have forced a wave of mergers between digital marketing experts and traditional IT consulting firms.
http://fortune.com/2016/01/29/ibm-resource-ammirati/