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XenServer for Free !

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With VMWorld Europe coming up,it seems Citrix is trying to get VMWare out of its warm cozy mansion, it seems they plan to announce next week that they won’t charge anymore for XenServer.

Altough the underlying Xen technology is fully Open source , Citrix doesn’t plan on fully opensourcing XenServer itselve yet. So how will they make their money then you’d ask ? By shipping a new managment framwork that will support both XenServer and the Microschoft Hyper-V platform.

It looks like Citrix is also planning to announce a similar agreement with Micro
soft as RedHat already did earlier this week.

So what will VMWare do as a reaction next week ?

Veeam Expands Partner Program

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Veeam Software, provider of systems management tools for VMware ESX host environments, today announced the next phase in its ProPartner program, with added benefits and opportunities for VMware VAR partners in 2009. Basic, Silver and Gold partner levels have been defined, with increasing benefits and opportunities at each level.

At the same time, Veeam has completed the integration of partner programs from nworks, which Veeam acquired in 2008. Veeam and former nworks partners are organized into a global two-tier distribution network to better serve end user customers seeking to back up and recover, report and document, monitor performance, plan capacity and control VM sprawl, manage configuration and change, and otherwise manage VMware infrastructure.

In addition, Veeam announced that its partner network now has more than 1,400 ProPartners worldwide. Partner benefits include up to 65% additional revenue and margins for every VMware ESX deal.

Veeam’s ProPartner levels include:
  • Gold ProPartner – by invitation/approval. Requires at least one VMware certified professional (or equivalent HP or Microsoft designation) on staff. Benefits include NFR keys, internal-use licenses, marketing programs, deal registration, access to the ProPartner portal, and use of the Gold ProPartner logo to designate this elevated partner status.
  • Silver ProPartner – requires approval by regional channel management team. Benefits include NFR keys, internal-use licenses, marketing programs, access to the ProPartner portal, and use of the Silver ProPartner logo.
  • Basic ProPartner – provides any other VAR or reseller who wants to quote or sell Veeam products with access to the ProPartner portal and a starting point to begin working with Veeam.

EMC/VMW Acquisition By Cisco Imminent?

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Great field work on Virtualization.info today about the fact that investors are buying heaps of VMware stock, signalling that something is up.

A small excerpt:

Monday’s SEC filings shows that Cisco posted a prospectus on raising $4 billion in senior bonds. The book building is run by all the major investment banks and is closing on February 17.
Cisco must be really confident for such a major issuance in these market conditions, but Standard & Poors is giving the senior unsecured notes an A+ rating with a stable outlook.
Cisco will use $500 million of the $4 billion to repay short term debt.  When combined with sizeable cash holdings, this leaves them with with $4.7 billion in cash at the US parent company. According to CNET that amount excluded cash holdings at subsidiaries overseas.

Release: Lanamark Suite 2009

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Lanamark today announced general availability of Lanamark Suite 2009. The new version includes support for monitoring Citrix XenServer and VMware ESX, supplements server information with power consumption, form factor, age and warranty metrics, and simplifies capacity planning with significant user experience and reporting automation enhancements.

Lanamark Suite 2009 now includes monitoring of Citrix XenServer and VMware ESX free of charge for all assessments commencing prior to March 31, 2009. Standard licensing per desktop or server workload per assessment still applies.

VMware Debuts Open Source Virtual Desktop Client

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VMware today announced the first open source client for virtual desktop infrastructure, VMware View Open Client.

VMware View enables IT organizations to safely host user desktops in the datacenter, while letting users access their personalized desktop environments from almost any device, at any time – all at a lower cost of ownership than traditional desktop environments. Now, VMware is providing VMware View Open Client for partners, enabling them to use VMware View source code to optimize their products to deliver rich, personalized virtual desktops to users. In addition, partners will be able to use the source code to help accelerate the development and delivery of solutions for enterprises to provision and manage thousands of virtual desktops simply, securely and at substantially lower operating costs.

This announcement is another important step in VMware’s vClient Initiative to deliver universal clients – desktops that follow users to any end point while providing a rich personalized experienced that is secure, cost-effective and easy for IT to manage.

VMware View Open Client is available under the GNU Lesser General Public License version 2.1 (LGPL v 2.1) and is accessible from  http://code.google.com/p/vmware-view-open-client/. Some of the features included in this release support secure tunneling using SSL, two factor authentication with RSA SecurID, Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Thin Client Add-On RPM package and a full command line interface. Support for the source code distribution is available through the VMware View Open Client community at: http://code.google.com/p/vmware-view-open-client/.

VMware: Fourth Quarter Disappointing But Still Better Than Expected

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VMware today announced financial results for the fourth quarter and full year 2008.

  • Revenues for the fourth quarter were $515 million, an increase of 25% from the fourth quarter of 2007.
  • GAAP operating income for the fourth quarter was $102 million, an increase of 34% from the fourth quarter of 2007. Non-GAAP operating income for the fourth quarter was $135 million, an increase of 25% from the fourth quarter of 2007.
  • GAAP net income for the fourth quarter was $111 million, or $0.29 per diluted share, compared to $78 million, or $0.19 per diluted share, for the fourth quarter of 2007. Non-GAAP net income for the quarter was $142 million, or $0.36 per diluted share, compared to $103 million, or $0.26 per diluted share, for the fourth quarter of 2007.
  • Revenues for the full year 2008 were $1.9 billion, an increase of 42% from 2007.
  • GAAP operating income for the full fiscal year 2008 was $313 million, an increase of 33% from 2007. Non-GAAP operating income for the year 2008 was $469 million, an increase of 39% from 2007.
  • GAAP net income for the full fiscal year 2008 was $290 million, or $0.73 per diluted share, compared to $218 million, or $0.61 per diluted share, for 2007. Non-GAAP net income for the year 2008 was $416 million, or $1.05 per diluted share, compared to $295 million, or $0.82 per diluted share, for 2007.
  • Cash was more than $1.8 billion and deferred revenue was $870 million as of December 31, 2008. Since the beginning of 2008, cash increased 50% and deferred revenue increased 57%.

U.S. revenues for 2008 grew 37% to $988 million from 2007. International revenues grew 48% to $893 million from 2007.

License revenues for 2008 grew 30% to $1.2 billion from 2007. Services revenues grew 67% to $703 million from 2007.

(Release)

For analysis, read Tech Trader Daily and Between The Lines.