Q3 2008 Virtualization Transactions

Teksys acquires Tech MS

In a move that will bolster its credentials in the virtualization market, Teksys has acquired the assets of a smaller rival reseller called Technology Made Simple, usually better known as Tech MS. Tech MS, which has a turnover of £8m and is based in London, provides Teksys with access to a reseller with established VMware and Citrix relationships as well as being a Microsoft gold partner and an HP platinum partner. Teksys said that it had been planning to extend the business to develop its areas of core competency, which include virtualization, licensing and SAM, unified communications and Sharepoint.

Announcement Date: September 23, 2008
Deal Value: Undisclosed

PHD Technologies to acquire Xtravirt Virtualization Software

Data-backup provider PHD Technologies has acquired software assets from Xtravirt. PHD Technologies backs up and encrypts data for virtual computer networks.  Under the deal, the company bought the virtualization management products of Xtravirt, a virtualization consultancy based in the United Kingdom. Alex Mittell, Xtravirt co-founder, will join PHD Technologies as director of research and development. PHD Technologies said Xtravirt will continue to distribute PHD Technologies’ esXPRESS product in the United Kingdom.

Announcement Date: September 16, 2008
Deal Value: Undisclosed

Kace acquires Computers In Motion

Systems management vendor Kace acquired the intellectual property and principal engineers of Computers In Motion, a small company focused on application virtualization technology. The buy gives Kace an entry into a market where heavyweights such as Altiris (now part of Symantec), Microsoft and VMware have been focusing recent efforts. Computers In Motion, founded in 2001, developed a handful of products including Avispa, which allows individual applications to be imaged into a container. CIM’s SafeContainers creates a virtual sandbox to isolate Internet Explorer from the computer it is running on, preventing any downloads or files from altering the Windows registry settings and keeping the installation clean and safe. According to the company, applications running with a container share resources with the system, but don't change the underlying system. This application virtualization technology appealed to Kace as application virtualization technology is a must-have if you are a systems management player.

Announcement Date: September 10, 2008
Deal Value: Undisclosed

Red Hat acquires Qumranet

Red Hat, Inc., provider of open source solutions, acquired Qumranet, Inc. The acquisition includes Qumranet's virtualization solutions, including its KVM (Kernel Virtual Machine) platform and SolidICE offering, a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), which together present a comprehensive virtualization platform for enterprise customers. In addition, Qumranet's talented team of professionals that develop, test and support Qumranet solutions, and its leaders of the open source community KVM project, will join Red Hat. This acquisition advances Red Hat's efforts to transform the virtualization market and drive comprehensive virtualization technology and management solutions into every system, from servers to desktops, on both Linux and Windows. With this acquisition, Red Hat has clearly positioned itself as a competitor within the Virtual Desktop market.

Announcement Date: September 4, 2008
Deal Value: $107 Million (Cash)

Symantec acquires nSuite

Symantec is acquiring nSuite Technologies in order to build out its portfolio of virtualization security and management technologies. Privately held nSuite makes software called PrivacyShell Virtual Workspace Management, which is primarily used by hospitals for secure desktop management on behalf of physicians and medical staff. nSuite functionality reflects the next wave in software virtualization and Symantec views them as a necessary part of the stack. Symantec feels the focus needs to be on the information that’s valuable and, while the nSuite software is not tied directly to use of the popular virtual-machine software packages such as those from VMware, Microsoft or Citrix XenSource, it provides functions that could be used for managing data in these environments. Symantec anticipates integrating the nSuite software with its Altiris SVS and AppStream management consoles in the future.

Announcement Date: August 6, 2008
Deal Value: Undisclosed

Double-Take Software acquires emBoot, Inc.

Double-Take Software acquired emBoot Inc. (Canada), experts in network booting technology. The acquisition follows Double-Take Software’s development of full system protection and recovery technologies as well as the acquisition of CDP recovery with TimeData as key components of the company’s Dynamic Infrastructure Strategy that aims to optimize, protect, monitor and recover workloads on any resource, anywhere and to any point in time. The technology acquired with emBoot, Inc. allows organizations to easily assign and re-assign computing workloads to any available Windows or Linux physical servers or desktops or any virtual machine in their environment. IT organizations can now move those workloads around in a matter of minutes, whether it is because a disaster has occurred, a data center is moving, the company has decided to virtualize its infrastructure or an application needs more capacity.

Announcement Date: July 29, 2008
Deal Value: $9.6 Million (Cash)