Sun acquire open source Innotek

SUN Microsystems has announced it is to acquire the German open source virtualisation company Innotek, which makes VirtualBox software that lets users more easily run different operating systems on a single box.

The company said that enable developers to more efficiently build, test and run applications on multiple platforms, VirtualBox would extend Sun’s own xVM platform.

Sun did not say how much the stock purchase agreement is worth.

Innotek's open source VirtualBox has had more than four million downloads since January 2007. The product lets desktop or laptop PCs running the Windows, Linux, Mac or Solaris operating systems to run multiple, different operating systems side-by-side, switching between them with a click of the mouse.

This means software developers can more easily build multi-tier or cross-platform applications, or power-users to take advantage of applications that may not be available for their base operating system of choice.

“VirtualBox provides Sun with the perfect complement to our recently announced Sun xVM Server product,” Sun Software executive vice-president Rich Green said.

“Where Sun xVM Server is designed to enable dynamic IT at the heart of the datacentre, VirtualBox is ideal for a laptop or desktop environment.”

The agreement to acquire innotek follows Sun's announcement on January 16 of a definitive agreement to acquire MySQL, the popular open source database.

Sun said the acquisitions reaffirm the company’s status as the largest commercial open source contributor.

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VMware disappoints, gets hammered

STOCK market darling VMware has taken a share price beating after announcing disappointing fourth quarter results, prompting investors to flee in the face of competition from Microsoft and others.

The stock lost more than 30 per cent of its value, wiping US$11 billion ($12.3 billion) off shareholder value.

VMware, a virtualisation specialist, listed last year in the biggest IPO since Google went public in 2004. VMware stock immediately soared.

The company has been a pioneer in the virtualisation market, growing revenues to more than US$1.3 billion in the past decade and helping corporate datacenters to drastically reduce power costs and hardware overheads in the process.

But reports in the US say investors have been spooked by less than stellar fourth quarter results amid fears that industry giants like Microsoft, Oracle and Citrix Systems have now turned an eye to virtualisation and will continue to squeeze VMware performance.

VMware reported fourth quarter revenue of US$412 million, an increase of 80 per cent over the year-ago quarter, but slightly below company forecasts.

What appears to have spooked the market is its forecasts. The company says it expects revenue to grow 50 per cent in 2008, somewhat lower than the consensus analyst view of growth between 55 per cent and 57 per cent.

VMware president and chief executive Diane Greene downplayed the more serious entry of others into virtualisation market, saying the company had a market lead and deeper channel relationships that any competitor.

“VMware executed at a remarkable pace in 2007 as customer interest and partner attention increased several fold,” Ms Greene said. “As others begin to enter the market, VMware and our partners are continuing to broaden and deepen our highly reliable end-to-end virtualisation solutions.

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Microsoft outlines virtualisation plans

MICROSOFT has outlined plans to accelerate development of its virtualisation technology offerings, acquiring privately-held Calista Technologies and expanding its partnership with Citrix Systems.

The company announced the completion of its Calista acquisition at its Virtualisation Deployment Summit in San Jose yesterday. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

San Jose-based Calista was founded in 2006 and has been pioneering next-generation desktop virtualization. Its product aims to provide richness and responsiveness of locally-executing desktops while preserving the security, management and cost benefits of a centralised computing model.

The company claims to be the only desktop platform that provides a user interface and cost per desktop to support broad adoption. The core of Calista’s technology is a patent-pending Virtual GPU (graphics processing unit) technology that improves user experience, but more importantly increased the number of users per server – dramatically lowering per user costs.

Microsoft Server and Tools Business senior vice-president Bob Muglia said few customers were using virutalisation technology – less than 5 per cent – because it was too costly and too complex.

“We believe Microsoft’s comprehensive approach – from desktop to datacentre – is unique to the industry by delivering solutions that address virtualisation at the hardware, application and management levels,” Mr Muglia said.

“Our approach is not only one of the most comprehensive … (but) also one of the most economical. This combination brings a big strategic advantage and cost savings to customers,” he said.

Microsoft and Citrix announced an expanded alliance to deliver a set of virtualisation solutions to address the desktop and server virtualisation needs, working together to deliver and market joint solutions with Windows Server 2008.

The companies plan to co-market new client computing offerings with the next generation of Citrix Presentation Server and the Citrix XenDesktop products, both based on Windows Server 2008 and Windows Optimised Desktop solutions, and managed by Microsoft System Centre.

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