Joe Foran is speculating a future acquisition of application virtualization provider PortableApps on the Server Virtualization Blog .

“There are, of course, differences, but the overall business models are very similar. PA is an open-source outfit, which makes them a bit more transparent than Thinstall, which has a mix of OSS and proprietary products. Since PA is purely open source, and relies a lot on the community to deliver portable-ized apps, their list of of programs is smaller and limited to open source and other freely-licensed software. Still, with the recent focus on OSS in the enterprise, one can’t help but see the value of a PortableApps version of OpenOffice sitting on a Citrix Server for thin-client and virtual desktop users to access.”

The virtualization space is continuously heating up, and no doubt we will see more acquisitions of these types of technology providers in 2008, but will PortableApps really be the next one? Time will tell.