Sun Microsystems has just announced , in a surprising move, the acquisition of German desktop virtualization technology provider innotek , makers of the well-known VirtualBox family.
VirtualBox is a general-purpose full virtualizer for x86 hardware. Targeted at server, desktop and embedded use, it is one of the only professional-quality virtualization solutions built on Open Source technology.
The acquisition by Sun, in essence a stock purchase agreement with undisclosed financial details, is a definite winner. With over four million downloads since January 2007, innotek’s VirtualBox product has been quickly established as one of the leading developer desktop virtualization platforms. As part of the Sun xVM portfolio, VirtualBox will have the support of Sun’s global development community, field resources and partners to make VirtualBox “even more compelling to developers and end users, driving greater adoption across a broad set of communities”.
From the press release:
“By enabling developers to more efficiently build, test and run applications on multiple platforms, VirtualBox will extend the Sun xVM platform onto the desktop and strengthen Sun’s leadership in the virtualization market.”
“VirtualBox provides Sun with the perfect complement to our recently announced Sun xVM Server product,” said Rich Green, executive vice president, Sun Software. “Where Sun xVM Server is designed to enable dynamic IT at the heart of the datacenter, VirtualBox is ideal for any laptop or desktop environment and will align perfectly with Sun’s other developer focused assets such as GlassFish, OpenSolaris, OpenJDK and soon MySQL as well as a wide range of community open source projects, enabling developers to quickly develop, test and deploy the next generation of applications.”
The acquisition is also another sign EMEA is marking its territory in virtualization land.