VMware Inc. (VMW), the leader in virtualization solutions for x86 servers & desktops, finally went public on Monday and the IPO has become one of the few bright spots in the volatile stock market. The offering by the Palo Alto-based company raised $957 million before expenses and while the company's investment bankers priced the IPO at $29 late Monday, VMware finished Tuesday's regular trading at $51.
I was trying to reschedule a meeting with a VMware system engineer today to discuss our virtualization strategy and joked that he and his colleagues would probably be unavailable the next few days as they would be busy counting their money.
I started using VMware's enterprise virtualization product, ESX Server, about five years ago and was lauding the product as one of the few software solutions that was worth every penny. I was so impressed with the technology that it is the only technical certification, VMware Certified Professional (VCP); I ever invested the effort, money or time to attain.
I was a little concerned when there were rumors that Microsoft was attempting to purchase the company and still leery of the 2004 acquisition by EMC, but fortunately this was one time when the "if it isn't broken, don't fix it" rule was adhered to and EMC left VMware to do what they did best.
If you rely heavily on x86 desktops/servers running Windows or Linux operating systems and your organization could profit for any of the benefits VMware has listed below; you should take a serious look at VMware's virtualization solutions.
- Server Consolidation and Infrastructure Optimization: Virtualization makes it possible to achieve significantly higher resource utilization by pooling common infrastructure resources and breaking the legacy “one application to one server” model.
- Physical Infrastructure Cost Reduction: With virtualization, you can reduce the number of servers and related IT hardware in the data center. This leads to reductions in real estate, power and cooling requirements, resulting in significantly lower IT costs.
- Improved Operational Flexibility & Responsiveness: Virtualization offers a new way of managing IT infrastructure and can help IT administrators spend less time on repetitive tasks such as provisioning, configuration, monitoring and maintenance.
- Increased Application Availability & Improved Business Continuity: Eliminate planned downtime and recover quickly from unplanned outages with the ability to securely backup and migrate entire virtual environments with no interruption in service.
- Improved Desktop Manageability & Security: Deploy, manage and monitor secure desktop environments that end users can access locally or remotely, with or without a network connection, on almost any standard desktop, laptop or tablet PC.
I'd like to offer my personal congratulations to VMware on their success. They've really earned their place in the sun today.
Comment Preview