Finally, Confluent is tightly linked to Apache Kafka, which has become the de facto standard for real-time event streaming in many enterprises. Owning Confluent gives IBM influence over one of the key data backbones for modern apps, increasing IBM’s relevance to developers and data engineers, a group where IBM historically has trailed the hyperscalers.Moreover, Confluent’s revenue is expected to reach about $1.35 billion by 2026. Analysts estimate that it could add roughly 2% to IBM’s revenue growth once co ...