EMC buys software firm VMware for $635m

EMC corporation, the information storage and management company which has a plant in Cork, has signed a deal to acquire Palo Alto-based VMware for approximately $635 million (E516 million).

VMware is a rapidly growing, privately held software company and a leader in Intel-based virtual computing software.

The acquisition is subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals, and is expected to be completed early in the first quarter of 2004.

Joe Tucci, EMC president and chief executive officer, said: "Customers want help simplifying the management of their IT infrastructures. This is more than a storage challenge."

"Until now, server and storage virtualisation have existed as disparate entities. Today, EMC is accelerating the convergence of these two worlds."

"We've been working with the talented VMware team for some time now," Mr Tucci said, "and we understand why they are considered one of the hottest technology companies anywhere."

EMC said the acquisition of VMware will play a key role in its strategy to help customers lower their costs and simplify their operations by deploying virtualisation technologies across their IT infrastructure to create a single pool of available storage and computing resources.

EMC said this "Virtual Information Infrastructure" will enable organisations to configure and reconfigure their computer and storage environments with no downtime, as their business needs change.

The company said it expects VMware's server virtualisation technology, together with EMC's innovation in storage virtualisation, will serve as a strong foundation for next-generation information lifecycle management solutions.

VMware's technology enables multiple operating systems including Microsoft Windows, Linux and NetWare to run simultaneously and independently on the same Intel-based server or workstation and move live applications across systems with no business disruption.

These "virtual machines" allow users to see resources as if they were dedicated to them, while administrators can manage and optimise those resources.