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News and insights from the vibrant world of virtualization and cloud computing

VMware Plans $550 Million Stock Repurchase

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VMware‘s board has authorized a $550 million Class A common stock repurchase plan that will extend through the end of 2012, the company said Monday.

The company said the stock will be purchased in the open market or through private transactions, subject to market conditions.VMware expects the equity purchase program to help offset dilution from its equity programs.

VMware also said its current $400 million stock repurchase program, originally announced in March 2010, will be completed in March 2011.

Citrix Invests In Primadesk: Search, Manage And Backup Cloud Data

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Citrix Systems this morning announced an investment in Primadesk, marking the first funding commitment for the Citrix Startup Accelerator, its Silicon Valley-based seed investment initiative launched in December 2010.

Primadesk, based in Novato, Calif., helps users search, manage and backup their personal cloud data with one simple interface no matter what device they use. A beta version of the Primadesk technology will be demonstrated on stage today at DEMO 2011, while the product will officially launch in March.

Primadesk was founded in 2009 and is also behind Fotolink, which lets users drag and drop photos from their computers to Facebook and vice versa, between Facebook albums and from friends’ albums and other photo services such as Flickr and Picasa to your Facebook albums.

(Also posted on TechCrunch)

DynamicOps Raises $11.3 Million, SEC Filing Reveals

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DynamicOps, founded in 2008 by Credit Suisse based on their five years of large-scale production deployment with what is now known as DynamicOps Virtual Resource Manager (VRM) software, has apparently raised $11.3 million in yet unannounced funding (SEC filing).

DynamicOps provides private cloud automation software. The company recently reported 200% year-over-year revenue growth.

Update: confirmed.

The Series B round of funding was led by Sierra Ventures, with Next World Capital participating, joining Credit Suisse’s Next II venture group in ownership of the company.

Parallels Appoints Microsoft Vet Birger Steen As Its New CEO

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Parallels has announced the promotion to CEO of current company President Birger Steen.

Parallels founder and outgoing CEO Serguei Beloussov will continue his full-time role as Executive Chairman of the Board and Chief Architect driving the company’s strategy and innovation.

Steen has been charged with managing and accelerating the growth Parallels has experienced in recent years. The profitable company generates more than $100 million in revenue.

Steen joined Parallels from Microsoft in September 2010. Since joining the company, Steen has overseen sales, marketing, product management, and customer support and services. He has also been integral in working with Beloussov to prepare the company for its next stage of growth.

As company president, Steen oversaw the launch of Parallels Desktop 6 for Mac and Parallels Plesk Panel 10.

In his expanded role, Steen will also be responsible for all day-to-day execution including engineering sales, partner relationships, support, marketing and deployment services.

Steen will work to further the company’s leadership in Cloud services enablement and desktop virtualization, where it has 78 percent market share according to NPD Group.

Prior to joining Parallels, Steen was Vice President of Small and Medium Business and Distribution at Microsoft. He held several other senior positions at the company since joining in 2002. He started his Microsoft career at as General Manager in Norway and then moved on to serve as General Manager and Vice President of Microsoft Russia.

Before Microsoft, Steen was CEO of Scandinavia Online AB, which was listed on the Stockholm and Oslo Stock Exchanges in 2000 under his leadership. Birger holds a Master of Science in Computer Science and Industrial Engineering from the Norwegian Institute of Technology in Trondheim and earned his MBA from INSEAD in France.

Report: Worldwide Cloud Systems Management Software Market Will Grow To $2.5 Billion By 2015

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MarketResearch.com has announced the addition of IDC’s new report “Worldwide Cloud Systems Management Software 2010-2015 Forecast and Trends” to their collection of Internet Applications market reports.

This IDC study examines the worldwide cloud systems management software market from 2009 to 2015.

IDC estimates the worldwide cloud systems management software market will total $2.5 billion by 2015.

“Although starting from a relatively low base today, the worldwide cloud systems management software market will grow very quickly as enterprise, midmarket, and service provider customers become comfortable with shared, dynamic cloud environments and migrate more and more applications to cloud in order to improve IT economics and operations,” explains Mary Johnston Turner, research director, Enterprise System Management Software.

Zenoss Adds Former IBM Software Architect Rick Houlihan to Executive Team

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Zenoss, a provider of IT management software for physical, virtual, and cloud-based IT environments, announced the addition of Rick Houlihan to the Zenoss executive management team in the role of Vice President of Engineering.

Prior to joining Zenoss, Houlihan was a Software Architect at IBM where he led the development team for the WPAR Manager product, which enables Live Application Mobility, allowing relocation of WPARs from one server to another without application restart. During his tenure at IBM, he was also involved in designing the resource management engine for Blue Cloud, which is now the flagship cloud computing platform for IBM.

Houlihan joined IBM via the acquisition of Meiosys, a leading provider of virtual server management products. As Vice President of Management Software, his team developed ground-breaking technology for policy driven relocation of virtual workloads in dynamic datacenter environments.

Houlihan’s past experience includes senior level engineering and service management positions at Ejasent, a pioneering provider of virtualization technology for cloud computing acquired by Veritas in 2004. He also brings a wealth of venture capital experience to Zenoss, having spent several years as a Venture Partner for Ambex Venture Group.