When Symantec made its first acquisition in the virtualization space, buying Altiris in 2007, the strategy of the company wasn’t exactly clear.
Altiris was mostly known for its management suite so the Software Virtualization Suite (SVS) product could easily be put in end of life.
But when Symantec also acquired the application streaming startup AppStream in 2008, an already tested and appreciated addition to Altiris SVS, it was clear the company focus on the virtualization market.
While the customers were waiting for an application virtualization and streaming solution resulting from the merge of two above, Symantec surprises buying a third firm, nSuite, for an undisclosed sum.
nSuite offers several products including a VDI connection broker called DBC.
With its acquisition Symantec clarifies that it doesn’t just want to deliver the applications but also the virtual desktops.
The approach is interesting but seems still incomplete.
If the company really wants to dynamically provision the whole computing stack it still misses the control of the virtual machines.
It wouldn’t surprise too much if Symantec would announce the acquisition of a hypervisor (and there are not many still available on the market at this point).