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EMC To Acquire VMware
kma writes "According to The Register, virtual machine software maker (and my employer) VMware Inc. will be acquired by storage giant EMC, pending the usual approval process." The article explains: "VMware makes the industry's premier set of partitioning tools for running both Windows and Linux on a single server and running multiple applications on a single system. EMC plans to grab the privately held VMware for $635 million in cash."
I'm not aware of VMWare's current monetary standings, but this isn't something I would have expected.
As long as they keep their product's quality up, I don't mind who's paying the bills.
clifgriffin > blog
I'm installing Vmware GSX right now. I was checking slashdot while the server reboots.
http://use.perl.org
Yes, this is nothing I would of expected from VMWare. Odd.. Oh well, thats what buisness is.. buying out other companies.
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I hope they don't raise VMWare to EMC prices!
This is America, damnit. Speak Spanish!
I wonder if the pricing will change?
At one time, vmware had home user pricing at something around $100. Then, they cranked it up to ~$300. Hopefully EMC will have some pricing options for home/hobbyist/non-commercial use. $300 is a bit too steep for me.. I can build another PC to run windows for that much.
Emulation seems completely the opposite direction I would want to take data storage, especially since performance and reliability are top concerns. How does adding an emulation layer enable the data environment?
Expect their products to be leased not sold from now on. It will probably have a subscription model where each year costs as much as the price that the product currently sell for. Why would they do that, you may ask? Because THEY CAN.
...that VMWare keeps its good Linux performance, because it's the only option (that I know) left after that M$ removed Linux support from Virtual PC.
The IT section color scheme sucks.
I hope this is good news for us VMWare users. Can't help to think it is. Things seemed pretty iffy for them after MS entered the space.
The only downside I can think of is that EMC focuses on the enterprise. Don't know if they give a spider-hole about us lowly single license folks.
I, for one, will await a price decrease announcement after MS ships their product. I desperately need to upgrade, but can't afford their steep prices.
EMC recently acquired Documentum. They are becoming quite a powerhouse. If they acquire Sun, things could get very interesting again.
"If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid." - Epictetus
I'm serious. If VMWare had the money to put into new reaserach then I doubt they would be allowing themselves to be bought out. The fact that they are allowing themselves to be purchased means that they most likely do NOT have the funds to put into Quality Assurance, much LESS to put into research.
One of the great things about VMware was that it was priced for home users, too... after the initial expense of the first copy, upgrades were available every version for only $100.
I hope "getting more into server management" doesn't mean limited (or non-existent) availablity of a great product for a great price in the future.
libertarianswag.com
As an EMC employee, this is a big surprise to me. (That's why I'm being anonymous.) This is the first time we're buying something that doesn't have an obvious storage connection (or a connection to an existing EMC product).
:)
It will be nice if this means we can get everyone who currently has separate Linux and Windows systems to move to a single machine with VMware, as we won't have to worry about licensing.
"business" is exchanging goods and services for either currency, or other goods and services. It has nothing to do with "buying out other companies".
Since EMC itself is on the "short list" for aquisition by Microsoft, this seems less strange but still very interesting.
EMC is a major SAN maker. I recently got a tour of a new SAN setup. Very cool. VMware was something they needed I think. In fact I think the EMC may have been promoting VMware on their systems for some time now? Correct me if I'm wrong.
All of these moves just demonstrate the increasing move back to the mainframe. Now, the mainframe presents a virtual GUI interface to the user vs. a 80x25 green screen. The mainframe now becomes a series of operating system images, working in a virtualized system, providing users with their environment to do their work. Really, look at the "on demand" efforts by IBM and others, or the moves by Microsoft with VirtualPC and continued strength of Terminal Server. And you'll have access all the way down to your PDA/Phone! And once they lick persistent sessions across your instance, well then, you'll never have to reboot again!
The cycle continues yet again. What will create the next requirement to move systems off of the mainframe? I'm not quite sure, but let's hope that VMware (really ESX Server and GX Server--the real reason they bought VMware) does not get too tied to EMC storage virtualization. There are too many good uses beyond creating reasons to buy hard drives or SANs.
...tizzyd
I predict the merger will fail, horribly. Of course, that's an easy bet, given the history of most corporate merger and acquistion activity. Seems like 90% of them fail -- Wind River buying BSDi, Compaq & DEC, AOL & Netscape. And of those that "succeed", seems like the success isn't any better than what they would have been anyway -- e.g. Microsoft & Hotmail. Can anyone name an acquisition story that's been a huge success?
Like others, I wonder if this will have any effect on VMWare Workstation. It looks like they are pushing for server virtualization rather than programming/development. I use VMware *a lot* for consulting work, sysadmin and programming, even networking tests using the virtual networks. I run Windows, several Linux, several BSD, etc., and I haven't found anything that approaches VMWare (except maybe a stack of mini-itx machines each running a different OS, but that's obviously not as efficient). Not exactly a "hobbyist" but I'm not going to pay more than, say, $500 (and I *never* buy closed-source software so that shows you how useful vmware is to me). I'm probably just being silly, but I *always* get nervous when big public company X buys smaller private company Y, and I depend on Y's product. Because usually that's the one that gets axed or otherwise screwed up as they dream about their "enterprise sales". I bet the next version of VMWare will have a huge bullshit EULA, for instance.. (the existing one isn't so bad).
Still, it's too bad they couldn't make a go of it independently. It's by far the best value, I actually shelled out $$ for a licensed version, of any piece of software that I've ever purchased.
that VMWare would be worth that kind of money.
Isn't that more than the combined worth of Redhat, Mandrake and Suse?
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
VMware makes the industry's premier set of partitioning tools for running both Windows and Linux on a single server and running multiple applications on a single system.
:) Or did they mean "running multiple operating systems on a single system", in which case isn't that redudant with the first part of the sentence (running both Windows and Linux on a single server)?
:/
I've been able to run multiple applications on a single system for many, many years now. It's called multi-tasking
Also, wouldn't a "set of partitioning tools" be something like Partition Magic or fdisk? Or are we using a more generic form of the word partition? I've used VMware a lot, and I had to re-read this a couple of times just to make sure they weren't actually talking about something else.
Keeping things on topic, anyone know how OSS friendly EMC is? I'd love a free copy of VMware instead of guiltily using a years-old copy with a crack
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
...Storage giant EMC has this morning been acquired by software giant Microsoft.
and EMC wants to be a part of that phenomenom.
They see dumb storage as a thing of the past.
EMC plans to grab the privately held VMware for $635 million in cash."
And I plan to grab the latest copy of VMware before the company disappears, of before their product becomes a giant mess.
Remember AOLscape?
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Methinks maybe the FUD people are spreading here about VMWare and its potential pricing hike after the buyout is all the more reason for people to look at Bochs. ;-)
At least from an abstract point of view. The VMWare people obviously have some people and technology that are good at dealing with multiple filesystem types and operating systems co-existing.
A few years ago when I was specing new TB sized storage arrays, I wanted an affordable way to allow directly connected access to the same data to multiple operating systems, but allowing for each OS to make native FS calls to get that data. Nobody really had a gracefull solution. Most required isolated partitions, and those that provided a high level emulation layer either had no drivers for Linux, or the cost was in 6 figures for them to even consider developing something.
Needless to say, the cheapest solution was going with a network based access system to that data, which unfortunately meant that I had to spend more money making an isolated high speed network just for FS data, and popping two NICs in everything that was serving that data. Once again, not the most gracefull of solutions.(in fact one of the companies we looked at was EMC, and they were quickly excluded from our list because of their pricing and lack of features)
I've been out of that realm for some time now, so I'm not exactly up to date on advances in that arena. However I'm hoping that by EMC grabbing VMWare that this is one of the things they think they can address with VMWare's intimate knowledge of multiple operating systems peacefully co-existing.
On another note, I've been a huge fan of VMWare, and still use it for dev on a daily basis. If the pricing for VMWare reaches the point of EMCs pricing it will be a very sad day for me.
I sincerly hope that EMC is after the brains at VMWare, and not just the technology. Many companies these days think it's enough just to buy the tech, without its creators, and that's a horrible travesty.
Karma: 0 (But I wield a mean +10 Vorpal Apathy)
It may be a little early to make this call, but the HP+Compaq merger has already reportedly lowered the combined company's operating expenses.
And of course, it put them on par with Dell in terms of sales (15% vs 15%).
.sigs are for post^Hers.
this is not a troll, but VMware running upon Windows is far more responsive than running ontop of Linux (same hardware/machine).
If I recall, the fellow who created the Bochs emulator (maybe his name is Bochs?) claimed that Vmware was using one of his key ideas and not giving credit. I wonder what he thinks of that company being sold for over $.5 billion.
Also, wouldn't a "set of partitioning tools" be something like Partition Magic or fdisk? Or are we using a more generic form of the word partition?
The latter.
You can "partition" anything computerish into several, virtual, smaller units.
This sort of stuff is much more common in mainframe shops. You might have a single machine with a bunch of processors, I/O channel processors, device controllers, and devices. You partition it into several smaller virtual mainframe machines, each called "partitions" and each composed of some subset of these resources.
For instance: You might have a machine with 16 processors, of which you licensed 12 (the rest are in-place spares). You throw 4 of them into each of two multi-CPU partitions, one for accounting and one for engineering, use 10% of the time of another in each of ten "slow" partitions for OS software development, linux systems running web servers, and so on. (Maybe the last three get switched between accounting near payroll time and engineering near product release time.) You allocate disks, tapes, memory devices, controllers, etc. (or slices of them), to each partition.
Of those 4 CPUs that are unlicensed spares, maybe one is fried and the other three are in the mainframe supplier's "diagnostic partition", constantly (or intermittently) running hardware diagnostics on themselves and any devices that the vendor's maintainence people are fixing, have fixed but haven't released back to the customer, are installing for "delivery" next month, or are on-site spares of something other than CPUs that haven't yet been bought/rented by the shop.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
VMware: $299
Mini-ITX machines: $209 each
Now, you only need one of the VMWare's but you might need two or more of the mini-ITX's. Also, that's the bare-bones mini-ITX; I listed it as old 4 to 10 GB harddrives are basically free around where I work, and I would install my OS to that harddrive in another machine, shove it in the bare bones mini-ITX, and not put in the CDROM or floppy.
Still, if someone offered me a choice between two of those mini-itx's and a full licensed version of VMWare in the package, I know what I'd do -- the mini-ITX.
Virtual PC lets MS-
- virtualize their old operating systems so that they can slide DRM in without making old software/OS's obsolete. New software would run in a DRM'd OS isolated from the others.
- create an OS under the OS (virtualizing BIOS?) so they still get a cut, even if you want to run Linux etc.
VMWare has the same opportunity and a lead in the server area. I'm not supprised they got bought out. Need disaster recovery or deployment of a complex app server? Just copy out the VM to DVD or tape. Very handy.
It's just going to take a while to get those small unmarked bills. Don't get them started about having to count them...
alias uptime="echo '5:33pm up 22342352324 days, 6:28, 2124315623 users, load average: 2432.40, 12312.31, 123123.19'"
from http://www.vmware.com/products/vmanage/vc_faqs.htm l:
What is VMotion technology?
VMotion technology lets you move running virtual machines from one physical ESX Server to another while maintaining continuous service availability and complete transaction integrity. VMotion is enabled by the ability to keep the entire state of an x86 Server in software, which then allows that state to be duplicated and shifted from server to server. VMotion leverages a shared storage infrastructure -- such as a storage area network -- to allow the state of the virtual machine to be moved from one physical system to another without requiring its data to be moved.
Yup. That sounds like EMC to me.
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
How many people think EMC overpaid for this one?
Keeping things on topic, anyone know how OSS friendly EMC is?
;).
I did some research about this, and I found an article stating that Compaq, EMC, HP, IBM, Intel and Sun Join Open Source Development Network. But note that this article is dated for the year 2000. Founded by them OSDN site feels VERY good. And we can see it was a really good (bottom) initiative (OSDN even supports slashdot
I tried to answer if after 4 years EMC is still supporting OSDN. Yet I was unable to confirm that.
those are the results of my research in this interestong topic. If you have manage to confirm that EMC still supports OSDN, please let us know!
--
#
#\ @ ? Colonize Mars
#
You've obviously not been using Windows.
As a rock-in-roll Physicist once said, No matter where you go, there you are.
So long as they don't run on FreeBSD.
Each day that passes, the "need" to have a VM to run windows becomes less and less because WINE gets better and better. Thus I have less and less need to give them any of my dimes.
How about Linux as the host OS? That is what Microsoft is most concerned about I would think. With VMWare I copy my Windows installation between home and office and fire the same copy up in different versions of VMWare. If I could not fire Windows up I would have to dual-boot or use Windows exclusively at work (shudder).
I bought VMWare back in the 2.0 days, and I've been strangled by their desktop pricing ever since. I need it because I'm an author of technical books and I need to take screenshots of things like boot screens and such. VMWare has good technology, but I've observed:
* They have focused more on the ESX and GSX line than the desktop. This makes sense from a technology perspective (building upon core competency) and marketing perspective (the server room is where the big bucks are).
* The desktop is marketed towards QA and test geeks, either in software development or IT shops who need testbeds for playing with new toys before running them out to the users. Again, this is where the money is.
* The home / hobbyist / other technical professionals have not been a part of their target market for several years now, and so they don't really care if the pricing fits more with medium-to-large businesses than for someone like me.
* Lastly, they do a poor job linking the useful information that sometimes can be found in their forums with any FAQs, help files, or other addenda. From personal experience, I found that running a guest OS "out of the box" is not covered enough to be helpful. Just try running Mandrake or *BSD by following the help file! Frustration ensues -- and it could be alleviated by a single Web page of helpful advice. Instead, the user gets to go mining for tidbits lurking among hostile VMWare geek postings. Not a good way to encourage new customers, let me tell ya.
I'm sorry to see VMWare get swallowed up by EMC; they have good technology and the market fit makes sense, but I don't think I've ever seen a smaller company get bought by a larger company and have the technology survive in any useful form without being mutated and bastardized beyond all recognition.
DART is not Linux, it's a proprietary OS that is based off of another OS. The only piece of the Celerra that is Linux is the Control Station.
Also based off this comment in the article, EMC has been working on a stealth project with VMware over the past year, according to EMC President and CEO Joe Tucci. The project includes building parts of VMware's virtual machine technology into EMC's storage management software. I expect their motive for this purchase it to extend the functionality of their products, such as Control Center and its affiliated products. Course I haven't been able to figure out exactly how yet.
And you claim about moving from XP to Linux for performance, is a flat out bull faced lie. I dont like Microsoft, but linux is a rickety bucket of bolts and there is no way you can run Office and the other apps you are addicted to in a VM faster with Linux. Its not possible.
It is amusing when someone makes a fool of themselves, but it'd be even more amusing if you weren't an A.C.
Fact: Word 2000 and VisualStudio both run faster on my laptop under Win98 under Win4Lin under Linux than those same two applications under WinXP on the same laptop. That's a fact. I even took a stopwatch out and timed it. I'm talking "load times"--the time from when I double click the corresponding icon to when the app is loaded and ready to use.
Sorry, it's not impossible. It's my real world experience.
You probably sounded a lot smarter espousing here when you were a Windows Kiddie. You probably knew a fair amount about windows. Now you are a UNIX idiot. Congrats.
I'd rather be a UNIX idiot than a misinformed person that doesn't let reality get in the way of beliefs. Doesn't it suck when reality doesn't properly align with your view of how things should be?
Or, more likely, you are just a troll and I have just fed you. :)
Or that you are both trolls.
XP natively runs code a lot faster, but it does have a great many more widgets and whatsits on by default. Shut them all off and you have yourself a fairly efficient fully multimedia capable desktop coming it at just over 60megs of ram. This can be accomplished in a linux environment too except I see it far more rarely. When I used to run KDE daily 300 megs of ram in use was not rare by any stretch. Things have improved greatly since then but saying a properly configured emulation environment runs faster than a misconfigured environment is well... pointless. Properly configure both and you will see that although VMWare is fast under Linux (Faster than the Windows version) It is still not the same as running it natively.
That said, I love VMWare, not because I can run a multitude of platforms, but because I can run multiple instances of the same operating system, splice in a few different ones and I have a full heterogenious networking environment. Add GSX server into the mix and things become even sweeter and your OSs can be remotely loaded enabling some incredible collaboration.
Alright, thats it, sorry its AC but well, I don't care about a name attached to it.
Lies. You apparrently didnt know as much about Windows as I had thought. Just because you are too dumb to trim the fat off of XP, doesnt mean you should use Linux. Linux ACPI is broken, EXT3 can corrupt on laptops very easily. Suggesting that MSFT knows less about your laptop hardware than Linux is LAUGHABLE. AHHAHAHAH. IM CRYING.
So, you are now a FOOL when it comes to trimming down Windows (wrt XP) and you picked the lamest, more loser of all UNIXes, fucking linux. And the best part is, you probably PAID for that shit. AHAHAHHAHAHAHA. Dude, just go get OS X or something and STOP PRETENDING
ahahahahhAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH ahahhah ahahhahahahhahahahahaha
Im so glad I would never have to work with you, you being in the mailroom and all and me being a GOD.
I bet they are really worried about things like nVidia's X drivers. Basically, if you ahve an nVidia card, Accel X hasn't got shit on XFree. The nVidia drivers are really fast, stable, and have full native GL support. Basically, they eliminate any advantage Accell X would have since their whole pitch these days is speed and GL.
If ATi follows nVidia's lead (maybe they have already, anyone know?) I'd say Xig is essentially fucked since those two account for the large majority of cards and laptops these days.
Really! for the money couldn't they could hire more than 21,000 indian developers at ~30K for one year.
Create one small group of senior developers to design the project and break it into it its simplest components and interfaces. Document them and pass the design along to...
One group of 2100 developers to manage the project groups. Each person would manage 9 component groups.
Create 900 groups of 21 code monkeys. Half of the group could write one component of the software. The other half would do the QA. One person would manage the group and report to the management group.
With 900 groups writing the components there would be excess capacity. Assign the same tasks to multiple groups for redundancy - someone would have to get it right - or produce better/faster code.
One year later (if even that long). BAMM! product is born.
I can certainly see how a big player in the server consolidation biz might want to team up with a big player in the storage virtualization business.
If VMWare's developers are going to be assimilated into EMC, I'm pessimistic about this thing. On the other hand, if EMC allows VMWare to maintain substantial autonomy, then it may work.
I'm waiting for IBM to decide it wants to play bigtime in this space. They know how to run Linux on enterprise-caliber hardware, and could probably give "EMWare" a good fight.
... its just like the days of Quarterdeck and Desqview, only with much, much, much more at stake.
Shee-it. The more things change, the more they stay the same. And change. And stuff.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
...since there appears to be a significant flaw with vmware on hyperthreaded processors. That, plus Microsoft offering Virtual PC 2004 for just over $100 could have adversly affected VMWare's near term prospects.
Of course good for VMware, bad for the slashdot crowd since workstation's future looks very bleak. While there may be a v5.0, I wouldn't expect v6.
They're going to pay $635 million in cash?
I hope they hire some pretty good security - and choose a highly secure location when they make the transaction, or someone might have a really bad day!
Haven't they realised that there are other ways of transferring such large quantities of money around??
The key reason most people buy VMware is for supporting several customer hardware/software configurations (i.e. for tech support or for developers). Win4Lin *does not* give you those capabilities. The other key reason is for running apps that only work on Windows 2000/XP (e.g. Visual Studio.NET). Practically all VMware's documentation is explicitely targetted to these two groups of people.
VMware costs *a lot* more expensive than the alternatives (Win4Lin and Crossover Office). If you're using VMware for any reason other than the above, then you're throwing your money away for nothing.
VMware is a bread-and-butter product for people like me delivering computer classes. The company has steadily introduced better and better features for educational customers and I fear we will be kicked to the curb as EMC tries to please enterprise storage-type customers instead. I also suspect that VMware may start to fade into an expensive, proprietary sort of space, ceding the cheap and dirty part of this market to Microsoft's Connectix products.
BTW, a severe gotcha I learned with VMware is that if you create a VM, then Ghost it to multiple systems, those VM's each end up with the same MAC address. Lesson learned, got to use a rollback utility on the original VM or just add a new virtual network adapter to each node's VM after the Ghost has finished.
In principio erat Verbum.
defending windows anonymously on the internet makes you a god? damn, man, they lower the bar further every fuckin day...
You're much better off plugging serial port, USB, PCI, and/or FireWire protocol analyzers into real-world hardware. For serial ports and USB, the necessary hardware isn't even all that expensive (probably cheaper than VMware).
defending lin sux while other good unixes exist if the lamest, you fucking asshole fag.
i never defended windows, ever. im not going to let a fucking kiddie lie about linsux here. so fuck you you god damn self effacing lying sack of fucking crap fuck you FUCK you FUCK YOU FUCK you.
im better than you. i have the easy flow elbow too.
Oh, come now.
Remember:
The government is stupid.
The private sector is smart.
Regulation is bad, the market must be Free to wield the invisible hand of Adam Smith, and we'll all be better off.
Oh yeah, given the opportunity, Iraq will spontaneously self-organize into a Reaganesque free-market democracy.
American Business is so $%^&ed up, I don't know whether to laugh or cry.
Hmm, yeah, I See lots of WinXP users going in there and modifying their configuration and shutting down unneeded services. I'm sure that's much more common than seeing a decent Linux installation. Right.
I was thinking of going to Linux anyway and when WinXP worked out of the box on my laptop slower than my Win98 machine even though the new laptop was supposedly 3 times faster, that's what decided it for me. Sure, I could have dicked around with the WinXP settings, but why would I want to? I was sick of Microsoft for awhile and when they introduced product activation and my HP laptop didn't come with an OS installation disk I figured I'd go with an OS that I actually have OS installation CDs for.
Anyway, I switched for the speed and stayed for the freedom. Worked out great!
Properly configure both and you will see that although VMWare is fast under Linux (Faster than the Windows version) It is still not the same as running it natively.
I also wasn't talking about VMWare. I was saying that Win4Lin running Win98 runs the same applications faster than the same machine running WinXP. I'm talking about 10x faster when double-clicking Word. And that's the honest truth. It seemed faster when I was in Win4Lin and that's when I popped the XP hard drive back in and got the stopwatch out, then popped the Linux/Win4Lin hard drive back in and checked it there. The proof was in the numbers in launching Word and VB6. Those are the two applications I timed. The other apps seemed faster and I suspect they were, but I didn't bother timing them all.
I was just surprised I didn't take a performance HIT. I was perfectly willing to do so. I didn't plan on using Windows that much anyway so I would be willing to put up with it being a bit sluggish. That's why I was so surprised when it actually ran faster.
Don't believe me? Doesn't bother me. I'm a happy camper anyway and that's what matters to me. I'm not going to lose any sleep over a few guys on Slashdot not believing me, ACs no less. :)
the cultures will not change. I went through a tech buyout. The buyers culture becomes yours. After 2 years less than 25% of the people were left from the small company, most was management. It was sad. Alot of customers were unhappy and alot of employee's lives were messed up.
take emc's mirrorview (synchronous data replication between clariion disk arrays over fcip).
:)).
now add vmware's esx/gsx with vmotion (which lets me pass a virtual machine over the network from one host to another).
then and add some *really* simple hooks into esx/gsx for mirrorview...which btw are already exist as part of emc's standard CX?00 host agents.
now one can move a server, collection of servers, or datacenter full of servers from one location to another while preserving the state of the disk, memory, and cpu.
so for those out there that are worried about the workstation line, fine...whatever. this purchase is about the smartest consolidation and disaster recovery play i've heard of in a *long* time (if they can make it work right
> (and my employer)
hmm...not for long.
EMC is moving hard and fast. They are definitly taking the initiative this year into the market, especially in the government sector.
"If I was smarter I could rule the world!"
Salemen that will wine, dine & fellate to get a contract, then nonexistent support on equipment that's 2 generations behind at 2 x the price of their competition. Where I used to work we had EMC SAN that never even had the phone lines attached that EMC was to use to dial in & monitor, and after asking about an upgrade for a unit they had to come and physically look inside the cabinet because they didn't even know what the **** they sold us. They got our pinhead CFO to sign an ironclad 5 year contract we couldn't get out of. Yay, EMC!
I wonder if we'll see VMWare competing with VirtualPC on OSX? Competition is good...
MS made a bid for VMWare? And MS bought out Virtual PC from Connectix.
Should there be a Law?
I wouldn't be too pessimistic about assimilation. As a Documentum (another recent EMC acquisition) employee, I can say that EMC's strategy toward their new software business units is thoughtful and methodical. It is clear that they intend to keep Documentum as a separate entity, with many of the existing processes and systems (and employees) intact. There are changes and some lay-offs to be sure, but I believe that EMC recognizes that their core competency is not in the software space. They're buying their way into the software world by acquiring successful companies - a strategy that has proven hazardous to hardware vendors in the past - but they're going to leave them alone as much as they can while still capitalizing on market 'synergies.' Their approach to VMWare will probably be similar to those taken at Documentum and Legato.
You make it sound like you heard the news not from your employer, but from The Register? Man, that sucks big time.
This isn't a merger, it's an acquisition.
http://www.vmware.com/news/releases/emc.html
VMware will still be run by Diane Green. EMC folks aren't going to be coming in to run the show. They don't want to disturb the team that's been assembled. Doing so would only be to the detriment of all parties involved. VMware will be able to leverage EMC's sales and marketing folks for more placement which will allow them to grow faster than they would have otherwise had they gone on the IPO themselves. More money will be able to be placed on R&D for better products.
I can only imagine that it will (in the end) add to EMC's bottom line, and help VMware to get better products to market faster with added resources.
Don't go firing the FUD guns until you have a real target to shoot at.
To Alcohol! The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems.
Using VMware ESX on a SAN with the new VMware Virtual Center is simply amazing... you can migrate machines from one physical box (running ESX 2.0.1) to another in a few seconds (depeding of the amount of virtual memory allocated to the guest OS).
To me the purchase by EMC of VMware is a great move (therefore Dell is also a winner). Now we can all hope for better EMC support for Multipathing and Cluster support on their Clariion storage arrays.
(IMHO) The company that will suffer from this IBM, as I believe the support for IBM's FAStT, will slowdown a bit.
EMC has one of the best sales and customer support organizations in the industry. EMC also consistently sets the standards in technology that their competitors follow. If you had out of date technology, then you purchased old products. You as the customer are responsible for installing and connecting phone lines, and both you and EMC are mutually responsible for negotiating contracts. I fail to see how EMC is to blame for your problems here.
You can also install Linux to a second partition on your hard disk, and make VMWare run that second OS inside Windows (I guess it also works the other way around). So you CAN work with a real file system.
I'm still trying to figure out what people mean by 'social skills' here.
Hammer - good to hammer in nails.
... and a rubber glove!
... but also by using the right tools.
Bah - use the heavy side of my vice grips.
Metric 12mm socket - good to remove a 12mm nut.
Bah - crank down on it with my vice grips.
Seat clamp on a bicycle seat - keeps seat at proper height.
Bah - good place for my vice grips and they do that just fine.
Rubber dipped spark plug cap remover - pull off spark plug caps while the engine is running and not get zapped.
Bah - use my vice grips
Air wrench - good to remove tires from a car in a hurry.
Bah - got my trusty vice grips, and nobody is in that much of a hurry to change a tire.
-:-
VMware is a good tool, and in many cases it is the best tool. The pro's get to where they are by cheating, lying, stealing, taking credit for other people's work
Tell you what, VMware is free for the first 30 days. Download it and install it on one of your spare machines, one with more than 512M of RAM is a good idea. Play with it for a month and if nothing else you will be well armed, able to make informed (actual experience) statements against using it - or you will be a believer. Nobody that has seen what it lets you do has anything but lust in their heart for this technology.
Virtual machines - the holy grail in computing. This technology (not necessarily this version or specific brand) is the bridge from single instance machines to mainframes. No matter how big your server is, if it is Intel based with Windows it is still nothing more than a glorified desktop. You start running multiple virtual machines and you have moved from what is essentially a game machine to a powerful business platform.
No joke. Go to www.vmware.com and download their fully functional 30 day trial. Once it clicks you will be eager to apply virtual machines to a BUNCH of problems we have all hacked our way around in the past.
Might want to get yours now, before EMC does away with the free 30 day trial, or the $300 license and goes somewhere 'professional strength' with the product.
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
Contrast that with Network Appliance, whose machines may develop a fault overnight, but by the time you get into the office in the A.M., the machine has already emailed support and obtained the RMA # for its own faulty part, which is being shipped prioroty next day air to your location. If a engineer is needed for the service call, he has also been scheduled to arrive when the parts arrive.
NetApp got their shit in one sock, let me tell you.
Edith Keeler Must Die
There is a key sentense in his own complaint. Without the phoneline connection EMC has no way to do remote diagnosis of the system...duh!...and if the phonelines had been connected they would have known without a visit onsite what you had.
you miss the point, EMC didn't give a crap enough to even have the phone lines attached - it was their job & part of their contract
Best sales, yes. Nothing else. One of our units didn't even have upgrade path though we were locked into 5 year contract. Phone lines for monitoring was actually part of their contract, by the way. They are the very worst SAN vendor I've ever had to deal with, HP and Hitachi being the best.
Cool. You must've bought a Clariion.
We got the same runaround and bullshit from our EMC people when we were unfortunately forced to use one. (Our preferred vendor is HDS, but the client bought and forced us to use the EMC POS.)
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"