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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 $635 million in cash."
I'm not aware of VMWare's current monetary standings, but this isn't something I would have expected.
As long as they keep their product's quality up, I don't mind who's paying the bills.
clifgriffin > blog
...that VMWare keeps its good Linux performance, because it's the only option (that I know) left after that M$ 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.
Since EMC itself is on the "short list" for aquisition by Microsoft, this seems less strange but still very interesting.
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).
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
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)
VMWare is great for those that have to make their application work on different platforms. VMWare provides a great way to do that kind of testing without having to have a box (or a pluggable hard drive) for each platform. Just boot into Linux (or Windows, if that's your game) and then you can run entire operating systems within VMWare.
Win4Lin is EXCELLENT for those of us--and I think we're the majority of the emulation market--that just need to run some legacy Windows apps within Linux. I upgraded from WinXP to Linux for performances reasons in February and purchased Win4Lin for $89. It lets me run Windows under Linux and every single Windows application I've wanted to run has run fine under Win4Lin. That includes QuickBooks, Quicken, Microsoft Office 2000, VisualStudio 6.0, GoldWave, Paint Shop Pro, a number of 16-bit applications, IE, RealPlayer, etc. I have yet to find an application that doesn't work. Win4Lin does have limitations (USB support and you can't run XP within Win4Lin), but if you are really trying to migrate to Linux then this is not much of an issue. My USB devices work fine with Linux (scanner and camera) so I don't need them to work in Windows, and I don't have any legacy apps that require XP so that limitation isn't a factor either.
When I made my move to Linux I spent a week or two trying to decide which to buy--VMWare or Win4Lin. In the end, I went with Win4Lin. I just decided that what I really needed was some legacy Windows support and that's it. While I was tempted to get VMWare so I could do multi-platform testing, that was more of a "cool thing to be able to do" rather than something I really needed. So far I haven't needed that flexibility. And if what you want is to run Windows legacy apps in Win4Lin, you can't beat the speed. My Windows legacy apps run faster under Win4Lin under Linux than the same apps on the same computer under Windows XP!
Another factor is that Win4Lin uses the native file system whereas VMWare creates a "virtual disk" which ends up being a huge file on your drive somewhere. So Win4Lin runs out of a copy of Windows in my ~/win directory with a whole Windows file structure below it. I can copy/delete, etc. anything in my Windows installation from my Linux shell. And since it uses the native filesystem, it's fast. VMWare, on the other hand, creates a virtual disk which is a huge file somewhere in your filesystem. So you'll see your Windows installation as a 2GB file and the only way to get data out of it is to run VMWare, enter that environment, and then copy it out (using FTP, networking, etc.). Meanwhile, I can get to every file in my Win4Lin installation just by cd'ing to that directory. I don't actually have to run Win4Lin to get to my files.
Anyway, long rant... what I really meant to address is your statement "Why would they go to a subscription model? Because they CAN?" Well, maybe. But I think only a small percentage of the Win4Lin/VMWare market really NEEDS VMWare. For most companies migrating from Windows to Linux Win4Lin is a much cheaper, much faster solution. So I'm not so sure VMWare can really just decide to go subscription "because they can"--unless they plan on surviving on just the developer's market who very well may NEED VMWare. The rest of the market (which is huge) would be fine with Win4Lin.
Microsoft locked out other OS's in the 90's by locking in the OEM's. With the VM's around, we could run the one or two Windows apps we needed while migrating to GNU/Linux. Then, BANG, Microsoft purchases VirtualPC and their partner( EMC ) purchases VMware....
Just watch what EMC does with VMware to see if it's being done to prevent OS competition. If they can the OS support and tie it into a Windows-only storage system, you know it was for Microsoft. Otherwise, they would have just partnered with them for use in their storage systems. It would have been cheaper to do that then to purchase the whole company and kill the current business model just to tie it into their SAN system.
IMHO.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
Does Win4Lin require binary-only kernel modules like VMware?
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.
That's great for Gnome, but if your business requires that you provide Windows systems, the situation changes.
For that, you can also cluster VMware systems. You can't cluster them directly, yet. However, you can cluster the virtual machines themselves to virtual machines on other physical machines.
We did a proof-of-concept using ESX Server 1.5.2, two Dell PowerEdge 2550s, Veritas Cluster server 2.0, and an EMC Clariion CX600. It worked like a champ.
The added benefit was that Veritas licenses their software per physical node, so we only had to buy two VCS licenses. If were were to use MSCS, we'd need to fork out enough for Windows Advanced Server on each of the virtual machines.
> :) 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
>
>
You obviously have not tried to run Microsfot Windows servers. When Microsoft sold companies on replacing their UNIX servers with Windows, it soon was found that one UNIX box running many server applications, needed many Windows boxes( one for each application ) because of how poorly the OS is designed.
They are realizing that now there is a way to bring all those applications back into one box. Voila', the virtual machine and running many MS Windows partitions on one piece of hardware. Just like how Microsofts OS is broken with regards to security and they are building the security into the hardware, the OS is broken so their putting a VM layer between it and the hardware to allow many applications to run on one box so when one crashes and the OS comes down, all the others are still running.
People/companies are moving toward Linux because it CAN run many application servers on one box( like UNIX ). Killing off the VM companies gives Microsft( and partners/EMC ) the ability to still push Windows and show that they too can run many apps on one box.
I'll bet Microsoft Windows management costs will go way up with this added layer wedged into the system.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
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.
...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.
As an ex VMware user I'll tell you why I dropped the product. I have used VMware in corporate settings, to run the requsite Windows apps on my Linux workstations. Budgetary connstraints hit enterprise "cost centers" hard in 2000, and it was far easier to adapt low cost solutions than to prariedog by asking for capital equipment for projects like network management, development, and security.
I stopped using VMware as their support for kernel upgrades diminished. This happened gradually, as their VMware for Windows product evolved. Forcing users to stick with a stock kernel for the lifecycle of a VMware release smacks of lack of concern for the customer base.
If this was a free, user supported project, I could live with some of the limitations of VMware. However, as a paying customer, I expect more for my money.
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
Up until now IBM's approach has been to support VMware, the have some partnerhip agreements and IBM has a reseller agreement. IIRC on some of the xSeries servers you could order VMware factory installed. I assume that three things are happening now a) IBM is considering a counteroffer b) the IP lawyers are going to be looking HARD at potential infringements of IBMs patents in this area c) they are looking at existing software assets for something they can use as a quick start to get in this game directly.
Oh, one other advantage that absolutely kicks ass...
Need to set up a new database server? Grab your OS disks, fire up VMWare Worksation at your desk, and set it up. This has obvious advantages if the server room is across the building, and even bigger advantages if it's across the country.
When it's configured and tested to your satisfaction, just ftp those disk image files to the GSX server, boot it up, and let the users at it. (at least i HOPE they haven't broken that compatibility recently, I know it works with the versions I have installed.) Oh, and don't forget to burn those image files to a DVD. Now you've got a quick easy starting point should you ever need to set up a similarly configured server in the future.
There are TONS of advantages that come from having your server environment configured this way, and most of them don't become obvious until you've administered in this environment for a little while. A few disadvantages, also, but the tradeoffs are MORE than worth it, IMHO.