Acquisitions

Phoenix Buys TouchStone

April 14, 2008 by Robin Wauters Leave a Comment

Phoenix Technologies recently announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire TouchStone Software Corporation, a company specialized in computer diagnostics and development of PC update technology. Under the terms of the agreement, TouchStone shareholders will receive $1.48 in cash for each share of TouchStone common stock, representing a 29% premium over the closing price of TouchStone’s stock on April 9, 2008.

According to the press release, Phoenix Technologies’ acquisition of TouchStone will enable the company to develop a strong online presence and infrastructure for web-based service delivery. Phoenix will offer services based on TouchStone technology to PC OEMs/ODMs, SMBs and consumers, as well as incorporate the technology into its own products.

“Following close on the heels of our BeInSync announcement, this acquisition is yet another giant leap forward in our effort to simplify all aspects of the PC user experience,” said Woody Hobbs, President and CEO of Phoenix Technologies. “Our PC 3.0 vision is all about simplifying PC users’ lives. With the acquisition of TouchStone, we are taking PC management technology to the ‘one-click’ level as well as strengthening our ability to support online delivery models. We are also broadening our opportunities for new market share gains and new sources of revenue via the web.”

The acquisition, which is expected to close in Q2 of 2008, is subject to customary closing conditions, including approval by the stockholders of TouchStone. special meeting of TouchStone’s stockholders will be scheduled as soon as practicable following the preparation and filing of proxy materials with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

You might remember Phoenix Technologies was the company that reportedly put pressure on Microsoft by filing a complaint with regulators sometime after early November 2007, arguing that Microsoft should open the less-expensive versions of Vista to virtualization (which it did).

[Source: VMBlog]

Symantec Agrees To Acquire Virtualization Streaming Company AppStream

April 10, 2008 by Robin Wauters Leave a Comment

At the Symantec ManageFusion 2008 event in Las Vegas, Symantec announced during the keynote session that they have agreed to acquire AppStream, the streaming company that has been working with Altiris and Symantec for the past two years giving Altiris a boost to their SVS Pro product by leveraging AppStream’s streaming technology.

Symantec executive Ken Berryman, VP of Endpoint Virtualization said in a press conference that “the details of the acquisition are private” and that “there is no current plan to change the AppStream name.”

Srinivasa Venkataraman, CEO of AppStream, mentioned plans to have tighter integration with Symantec Management Workflow, which was released yesterday at the show. When asked about OS streaming to deploy virtual machines, the answer was, “Stay tuned.”

Cisco To Acquire Remaining Interest In Nuova Systems

April 9, 2008 by Robin Wauters Leave a Comment

And why were Dante Malagrino of Cisco and Ed Bugnion of Nuova Systems jointly featured in the video presentation of Cisco Nexus 5000 we shared earlier today?

Start-up Nuova Systems operated as a majority-owned subsidiary of Cisco, which had invested $70 million and owned 80 % of the company. Cisco announced its initial investment in Nuova in August 2006 and announced an amendment to the agreement in April 2007 that expanded the development scope, increased the funding commitment and raised the maximum potential payout of the transaction to $678 million. And now Cisco has formally expressed its intent to acquire remaining interest in the company.

From the press release:

“Cisco today announced its intent to purchase the remaining 20 % interest in San Jose-based Nuova Systems, a start up focused on the development of next-generation products for the data center market. Cisco today also introduced the Cisco Nexus 5000 Series, the first product developed by Nuova. The Cisco Nexus 5000 is a 10 Gigabit Ethernet “top-of-rack” switch that offers unified fabric capabilities through the support for multiple data center networking protocols and software intelligence.”

The Nuova transaction is success-based with the total value primarily determined by the revenue of Nuova products over three measurement periods. The first measurement period will commence in early fiscal year 2010, the second measurement period will commence in late fiscal year 2010, and the third measurement period will commence in mid fiscal year 2011. The acquisition is expected to close in Q4 of Cisco’s FY 2008. It will be acquisition No. 126 for Cisco overall and the fifth one in FY ’08.

Sun Microsystems To Acquire Parallels For $ 205 Million (Updated)

April 1, 2008 by Robin Wauters 23 Comments

Looks like that Parallels IPO won’t be happening after all. Sun Microsystems has today announced it has reached an agreement to acquire Parallels (formerly SWsoft) and all of its assets for a whopping $ 205 million. The major acquisition had been rumoured to be imminent throughout the course of 2007, but never actually went through, which led mosts analysts to believe the Herndon, VA-based company was heading towards an IPO following in VMware’s footsteps rather than being picked up by one of the big boys.

Needless to say, the acquisition is a pretty bold one, which is bound to serve as wake-up call for the entire virtualization industry. Both companies had been on a buying spree the past few months: Sun picked up innotek / VirtualBox, while Parallels recently acknowledged its January acquisition of ModernGigabyte. The acquisition is expected to be finalized by June, around the time Sun also plans to ship xVM Server.

“With the acquisition of Parallels, Sun’s ready to become the only true leader in virtualization technology,” said Brian Sutphin, Executive Vice President Corporate Development & Alliances for Sun Microsystems. “With Parallels’ strong desktop position, we will be able to cater both Windows/Linux and Mac users with our state-of-the-art virtualization offering.”

Sergei Beloussov, Board Chairman and CEO of Parallels, added:”We’re extremely excited about the opportunities this merger will bring for our many customers and partners. We’re looking forward to effectively integrating our server product line with Sun’s sparc systems.”

Parallels, former SWsoft, has been making waves ever since it was founded in 1999. The virtualization technology company today counts more than 900 employees worldwide and has more than doubled revenues every year for the past eight years, while its products have been giving VMware a run for its money, especially in the small- and medium-business marketplace. The company was backed in 2005 by Intel Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners, and Insight Venture Partners.

While VMware has been more than struggling to consolidate its splashing entry on the public market, Parallels has effectively become the second largest virtualization seller, with both containers and hypervisor plays in its portfolio. Sun’s bold move is logical in this regard, be it quite late, as this acquisition would have made more sense if it had happened around this time last year.

We’re still scrambling to get some official comments on the news from market insiders, we’ll update this post as they come in!

Update: obviously, this was an April Fool (we’re in based in Europe, so it’s April 1 earlier than over in the US).

On any other day, what would you think about this announcement? Would it have surprised you that much? Do you think it would be a fair valuation and a good synergy? Let us know in comments!

(also: check some classic April Fools’ Day jokes here)

Update 2: kudos to Parallels for their sense of humour, thanks to Brian, Dan and Tarry for linking and to the person who dugg the story 😉

Update 3: check out our follow-up post

Keep It Quiet, But Parallels Acquired ModernGigabyte

March 26, 2008 by Robin Wauters 1 Comment

The Register sure has some pretty observant readers. Apparently one of them noticed an early preview of a deal which has been forged two months ago but was only to be announced tomorrow: Parallels acquired ModernGigabyte, the makers of billing software ModernBill and other automation solutions for the hosting provider market.

From the website section about the deal, which is supposed to be shared with the press starting tomorrow:

What is Parallels announcing?

Parallels is announcing the acquisition of ModernGigabyte, the creators of the ModernBill automated billing system.

What is Parallels acquiring?

Parallels is acquiring all of the assets of ModernGigabyte, including its products, services, intellectual property, and its existing staff. ModernGigabyte products include:

ModernBill, a billing system for hosting and service providers

ModernAuthorize, a real-time payment and credit card processing service

SSL Factory, an automated delivery system for SSL cetificates

ModernDNS, an automated domain registration service

FraudGuardian, a real-time fraud checking service for online ordering

Why did Parallels acquire ModernGigabyte?

Parallels believes that customers will benefit from this acquisition. ModernBill is already integrated with many of the Parallels family of hosting products and now small hosting providers will be able to purchase both control panels and a billing solution from the same company.

Dedicated hosting providers can offer ModernBill along with Plesk to create a complete reseller package.

Parallels ISV partners which have adopted the Application Packaging Standard (APS) will benefit by having a ready to deliver solution for hosting companies to sell their products.

Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed, and the deal between the two private firms was actually approved by both companies on January 11 of this year. Note that Parallels plans to maintain the current prices on the ModernBill website.

Microsoft Acquires Desktop Virtualization Software Maker Kidaro

March 12, 2008 by Robin Wauters 1 Comment

Microsoft announced on Wednesday that it has acquired Kidaro, a young company that helps businesses manage their collection of virtual machines. The financial details involved in the acquisition of the startup, which counts 35 employees, remained undisclosed, although Valleywag is calling it around $ 100 million.

According to CNET’s Ina Fried, Microsoft said the technology will make it easier for businesses to manage application compatibility challenges, ultimately spurring faster Vista adoption as well as broadening the use of virtual machines within enterprises.

“The challenge we have with Virtual PC today is it doesn’t have enterprise-level management and deployment with it and the user experience could be improved,” said Gavriella Schuster, a senior director in Microsoft’s Windows unit.

Schuster said that Kidaro’s technology helps on both scores. In addition to tools for setting up and managing virtual machines, Kidaro has technology that makes virtual machines less jarring for users, making them appear to be part of the standard desktop.

Kidaro’s technology will be added to a future version of Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack. The collection of tools is sold as an add-on to Microsoft’s Software Assurance program for volume license customers. Other things in the collection include an application virtualization technology known as SoftGrid and asset management tools that stem from Microsoft’s AssetMetrix acquisition.

While perhaps not a mainstream way for businesses to move to Vista, Schuster said Microsoft thinks some companies will find it more palatable with Kidaro’s tools to run older, Vista incompatible applications via a Windows XP virtual machine.

Update – from the Windows Virtualization Team Blog:

I’m told that the three founders of Kidaro will be joining Microsoft and play similar roles here, and that the plan is to keep Kidaro’s R&D team in Israel. That makes sense since Microsoft already has an R&D center in Israel.

So if you’re keeping track, this acquisition is roughly 45 days after we announced the acquisition of Calista Technologies.

[Source: Techmeme]