Container pioneer and Sun alumni lair Joyent has been bought by Samsung.

Since the buyer is a world-spanning industrial powerhouse, the acquisition is too small for Samsung to have to talk about the price.

Joyent's probably most famous as the first corporate steward of node.js and one of the language's largest users. It's also got containers-as-a-service under the Triton brand, and the Manta object-storage-as-a-service.

From Joyent's point of view the rationale behind the deal is simple. As CEO Scott Hammond – formerly of Cisco, not Sun – says, it's about scale: Joyent lacks it and Samsung has it in spades.

Samsung is also going to become an “anchor tenant” for Triton and Manta, Hammond writes, before drifting off into the inevitable corporate-speak about a “culture of innovation and technical excellence”.

As reassurance for customers who regularly see products consigned to the bin after acquisition, Hammond promises a strong future for Joyent's technology.

CTO Bryan Cantrill joins in the hat-tossing, asking (as various Vulture hacks did between ourselves) “what's going on here?”

His answer reiterates Hammond's, with a little more detail: Samsung wants the Manta and Triton technologies on its server-side, for mobile and Internet-of-Things applications, which will need scalability.

That fits with Samsung's sparse and un-exciting announcement, which says Joyent will become part of its Mobile Communications business. ®