VMware buys Zimbra to accelerate cloud computing

VMware will redefine their cloud computing strategy by acquiring Yahoo's Zimbra open source email business to further expand its share of the platform, the service market.

Yahoo bought Zimbra 350 million dollars in 2007. Zimbra's Open source email platform is popular with universities and service providers that use Linux and Mac operating systems. Yahoo also provides client deployment and hosting two versions.

VMware will invest 100 million of dollars to acquire Zimbra as part of the employee retention agreement, and many of Zimbra's existing staff will be owned by VMware.

Burton Group analyst Chris Wolf says the deal is meaningful for VMware. VMware has realised that as rivals such as Microsoft are gobbling up the virtualization market, they need to expand beyond virtualization.

VMware acquired the Java vendor SpringSource in April 2009, which provides primarily open source Web application development tools and management tools.

VMware says the acquisition of SpringSource will provide them with new products that make it easier to build, run, and manage applications on a miscellaneous internal cloud and external cloud platform.

VMware CEO Maritz stressed that VMware will not only support the cloud infrastructure that is configured for VMware products, but will also integrate new cloud applications and their acquisitions into the entire cloud platform.

"The acquisition of Zimbra is a wise move by VMware to redefine the traditional application stack," says Wolf. "VMware realizes that if they are sticking to the existing path of development, that is, as a service platform for Windows applications, Microsoft will eventually become a virtual collar

The ruler of the domain. "Of course the acquisition is not a fully-held bet, but it is a long-term move by VMware, because Paul Maritz and Todd Nielson (COO) know what will happen if they stick to the existing path in the future."

"As we all know, many companies are considering choosing a platform as a service product, especially for email, so VMware's timing is good," he says. Zimbra helps VMware get involved in the field and provides them with a break for people on Microsoft (Qualcomm

An opportunity for dependencies that are often started from Exchange. ”

But Wolf insists that Zimbra is not a move that VMware must take. VMware is entering a market that is not only Microsoft's dominant position, but also Ibm/lotus, Cisco and Google.

"This is not a measure aimed at the 2010, but a strategy that has focused on 2015-2020 years," he said. ”