EMC to purchase VMware

Very Interesting. We just sent in the PO to purchase an EMC NS600 and I’ve been talking to Dell about VMware. This could be very interesting…..

Reuters – Data storage company EMC Corp.
(EMC.N) on Monday said it would buy closely held VMware Inc., a
computer server software company, for about $635 million in
cash, its third major acquisition this year. [Yahoo! News – Technology]

EMC is going acquisition crazy. They recently bought Documentum and Legato, and today made the somewhat surprising announcement that they are buying VMWare. It had seemed that the earlier deals were sort of desperation plays between large companies who were finding their business models smoked out from under them. This deal, however, is quite a bit different. VMWare is a Silicon Valley darling that was expected to go public early next year – and was considered one of the bright spots for the potential IPO class of 2004. Apparently, once the offer was on the table, they believed it was better to take what was in front of them. It will be interesting to see what EMC does with VMWare – as it’s a bit far out of their usual business areas. However, if anything, this is a bad sign for those who believe that the IPO market is back. [Techdirt]

Update:

[Slashdot]