EMC Adds Another Company to Its Fold

Enterprise Networks & Servers, Jan 2004

EMC Corp. continued its buying spree with the announcement that it was acquiring Palo Alto-based VMware Inc. for approximately $635 million in cash. VMware is a privately held company specializing in Intel-based virtual computing software.

The acquisition is expected to be completed early in the first quarter of 2004.

EMC forked over $1.7 billion in stock for enterprise content management provider Documentum in a deal that closed in December 2003.

In late October it completed its buyout of Legato Systems, developer of information lifecycle management software, for $1.3 billion in stock.

EMC said its acquisition of VMware will play a key role in EMC's strategy to help customers deploy virtualization technologies across their heterogeneous IT infrastructure to create a single pool of available storage and computing resources. EMC said it expects VM ware's leadership in server virtualization, together with EMC's storage virtualization, to serve as a foundation for next-generation information lifecycle management solutions.

VMware's technology enables multiple operating systems - including Microsoft Windows, Linux and NetWare - to run simultaneously and independently on the same Intel-based server or workstation and move live applications across systems with no business disruption.

Joe Tucci, EMC president and CEO, said, "Customers want help simplifying the management of their IT infrastructures. This is more than a storage challenge. Until now, server and storage virtualization have existed as disparate entities. Today, EMC is accelerating the convergence of these two worlds.

"We've been working with the talented VMware team for some time now," Tucci continued, "and we understand why they are considered one of the hottest technology companies anywhere.

With the resources and commitment of EMC behind VMware's leading server virtualization technologies and the partnerships that help bring these technologies to market, we look forward to a prosperous future together."