acquisition

Follow-up On Our April Fool’s Joke On Sun Acquiring Parallels

April 7, 2008 by Robin Wauters 2 Comments

By now, you may have heard about the prank post we published on April Fool’s Day about Sun acquiring Parallels for $ 205 million. While the story was obviously fake, many people started speculating about its authenticity and – which was far more interesting – about the possibility of Parallels ever selling, and if so, at what price?

We were amused about the comments about it being ‘not so funny’, which was never the intention anyway. It wasn’t a joke, people, it was an April Fool. If it mislead you for even a second, that means it worked. It wasn’t supposed to make you laugh out loud, it was meant to get you thinking. We loved the response!

Honestly, did it?

Evidently, we didn’t want the prank to be a lame one, so we decided to run a story that would make people stop and think rather than being obviously fake, which is exactly what happened. As far as we’re concerned, it worked. We even got some feedback from both Sun and Parallels employees about the story, about how much they got a good laugh out of it. We loved reading the retaliatory post on the Parallels Consumer Tech blog, too.

Not exactly something to start a lawsuit over, or something that would actually affect the stock market, like some blogger ignorantly suggested (we hope he was joking too, because otherwise it would almost seem envious).

Anyway, official statements from parties mentionned in the article contained exactly the type of comment that official statements would have to feature: “Parallels is not for sale“, “Parallels is worth much more“, etc. (don’t you just love how these two kinda contradict each other?).

To be fair, we think Parallels is worth much more than $ 205 million as well, we weren’t trying to make a statement by picking that price, we just kinda went for it after thinking about it for a second or two. Same for the acquirer, we went for Sun after reading somewhere that Parallels would have been a great acquisition for Sun about 2 years ago, before it got so big.

Some of the points raised in the blog post by Ilya Baimetov, Directory of Technology at Parallels, are more interesting than the discussion about a good acquisition price, though. He says:

“SUN is a really strange acquirer. Our products are for Windows, Mac and Linux, and SUN is not that focused on the first two. Also, SUN is really not that much into automation, so again, not a good fit. If Microsoft or VMware or even HP or IBM was mentioned – it would make some sense, but not SUN.”

Excellent way to say you’re not for sale, guys! 😉

Now can we move on?

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

Novell Picks Up PlateSpin For $ 205 Million in Cash

February 25, 2008 by Robin Wauters 3 Comments

Today, Novell announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire PlateSpin for $205 million using current cash. The acquisition is expected to close during Novell’s second fiscal quarter 2008 subject to the satisfaction of closing conditions.

PlateSpin will be integrated into Novell’s Systems and Resource Management business unit. As part of this business unit, PlateSpin will continue to develop and market its solutions to a global customer base. This will be done through the continued operation of PlateSpin’s Toronto facility as well as through a combination of PlateSpin and Novell offices and facilities around the globe.

All key PlateSpin management are staying through FY08 and many have accepted permanent employment at Novell. PlateSpin founder and CEO, Stephen Pollack, will take on the duties of VP, Business Development for the SRM business unit.

From the official release:

“The combination of Novell’s platform and automation management with PlateSpin’s leading solutions for workload relocation, protection and provisioning will give customers the agility to cross physical and virtual boundaries so IT can work together. Both organizations are focused on helping customers maximize the strategic value of the heterogeneous data center. Novell and PlateSpin will deliver products for complete workload lifecycle management and optimization for Linux, UNIX, and Windows operating systems in the physical and virtual data center.”

[Source: CNN Money]

Funding For CiRBA and Virtual Iron, Dell Completes Acquisition of EqualLogic

January 29, 2008 by Robin Wauters 1 Comment

More interesting news today:

CiRBA Raises $12 Million With Sigma Partners

CiRBA Inc., today announced that it has raised $12 million in its second round of institutional funding led by Sigma Partners . Existing investors including Edgestone Capital Partners and others also participated in the round. The funding will enable CiRBA to further accelerate growth on a global scale, with investments in sales, marketing and product development.

Virtual Iron Capitalizes on Strong Market Momentum, Raises $20 Million in New Equity Financing

Virtual Iron Software, a provider of enterprise server virtualization software, today announced that it has secured $20 million in new venture equity financing. The funding, provided at an increased valuation, will be used to accelerate product development and expand global sales, marketing and distribution efforts. The investment brings Virtual Iron’s total venture funding to $65 million in invested equity capital and includes Highland Capital Partners, Matrix Partners, Goldman Sachs, Intel Capital and SAP Ventures.

Dell Completes EqualLogic Acquisition

Today Dell completed the EqualLogic acquisition, a leading provider of high-performance storage area network (SAN) solutions designed for virtualization and ease-of-use. The purchase extends Dell’s leadership in simplifying IT for customers.

“Customers face extreme challenges with data growth. Storage solutions that use existing infrastructure, install in minutes not days, manage themselves, can grow easily as needs increase and plug into the virtualized IT ecosystem will help businesses with their storage needs. EqualLogic provides these storage solutions and that’s the incredible value that Dell will now be able to deliver to our customers. With Dell’s PartnerDirect channel, we will unleash the power of iSCSI and virtualization to redefine the economics of storing and processing data.”

Acquisition Mania: Quest Software Snaps Up Vizioncore

January 22, 2008 by Robin Wauters Leave a Comment

Ain’t no stopping the flurry of acquisition spree we’re witnessing lately in the virtualization space. As reported by many media already, Quest Software Inc . has completed its acquisition of Vizioncore Inc. , a provider of disaster recovery and other products for virtual infrastructure management.

Quest already took a controlling stake in the company in 2005, but now moved to snap up the remaining interests. In 2007, Quest had already broadened its virtualization product portfolio by buying Invirtus , a provider of virtual machine optimization, conversion and automation products, and Provision Networks , a provider of virtual client and desktop management solutions.

Vinny Smith, CEO of Quest, said: “We see virtualization as the next great frontier within IT. The completion of the Vizioncore acquisition along with the recent additions of Provision Networks and Invirtus to the Quest family combine to position us as one of the leading pioneers in this emerging market space.”

[Source: press release at TradingMarkets.com ]

Microsoft Betting Big on Virtualization; Acquires Calista Technologies. Citrix Up Next?

January 21, 2008 by Robin Wauters 2 Comments

Microsoft plans to announce today what it calls a companywide strategy to accelerate broad adoption of virtualization by its customers. As part of the its new approach, the Redmond-based software giant unveiled a suite of services aimed at reducing the number of servers businesses need to use, separating applications from operating systems, reducing costs and lowering carbon emissions.

Microsoft announced that it competed acquisition of Calista Technologies , a California-based startup that makes computer graphics for virtualized computers, and an expanded partnership with Citrix Systems, a VMware competitor based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Microsoft and Citrix will jointly market services that virtualize computers, operating systems and applications.

Microsoft wouldn’t disclose how much it paid for Calista, but Roger Kay, President of technology research firm Endpoint Technologies Associates, speculates that the price tag was likely south of $100 million. He also says Microsoft may be interested in acquiring Citrix. “Citrix, on its own, has a small market share,” Kay says. “VMware was cleaning its clock.” A Microsoft-Citrix combination could present formidable competition to VMware, he suggests. Buying Citrix, however, would be a significant deal: The company has a market cap of $6.4 billion.

[Source: Forbes ]