If there’s one big tech company that’s been conspicuously absent in the world of new media over the last decade, it’s IBM. But that’s all changed now as IBM has acquired long-running video streaming service Ustream. Big Blue, as the heritage technology monolith is sometimes called, picked up Ustream as part of a larger plan for cloud-based video services the company is developing.

IBM’s new cloud-based video services unit is being designed specifically to serve business users. The service will provide improved analytics to its expanding user base. Braxton Jarratt, former CEO of Clearleap, which IBM acquired in December, will be leading up the new video services division. This group will include Ustream, Clearleap, IBM’s existing R&D assets in the streaming-video space, and two other recent acquisitions: storage company Cleversafe, and cloud data transfer company Aspera.

Ustream is based in San Francisco and has been around since 2007. The company, along with Livestream, is one of the Internet’s oldest services focused on live video. It’s hard to say for sure yet what this acquisition will mean for the future of Ustream. There’s a link on the Ustream homepage to a press release about the announcement, but no further details have been provided.