With a surprising move Sun just announced that will acquire the German virtualization vendor innotek.
Right today virtualization.info covered the beta release of VirtualBox for OpenSolaris, stating that it could be a major opportunity to finally address the need for desktop virtualization products in the Solaris empty market.
Just few hours later Sun unveils its move:
Sun Microsystems, Inc. today announced that it has entered into a stock purchase agreement to acquire innotek, the provider of the leading edge, open source virtualization software called VirtualBox. 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.
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The stock purchase agreement to acquire innotek is subject to customary closing conditions and is expected to be completed during the third quarter of Sun’s 2008 fiscal year. The terms of the deal were not disclosed as the transaction is not material to Sun’s earnings per share…
With this acquisition Sun further extends its virtualization strategy and becomes more aggressive against VMware.
The recent virtualization.info Q&A with Steve Wilson, Vice President of xVM Server at Sun, can now be read with a broader perspective, mostly for the Ops Center part.
After Propero (UK) and Dunes Technologies (Switzerland), both acquired by VMware, innotek is the third virtualization vendor which is acquired in EMEA. Is this finally a sign that even the old continent is a place for successful startups?
The virtualization.info Virtualization Industry Radar has been updated accordingly.