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Topic: VMware

Is VMWare becoming just an open source rollup?

Summary: At some point the music stops, and at some point you have to look at what you've bought and ask, is there a strategy there?

Dana Blankenhorn

By Dana Blankenhorn for Linux and Open Source |

The gang at Springsource was on me this week, pushing a non-disclosure agreement about some great secret news.

The news, it turned out, was that their parent, VMWare, is buying Gemstone.

Gemstone has actually been around since 1982, when it was founded as Servio Logic. It was bought at the height of the dot-com bubble, but then divested a year later -- one day you're a diamond and then you're a stone.

VMWare, which went public in 2007, has had virtual money burning a hole in its pocket for a year, having more than doubled in value since July. EMC, which owns the majority of VMWare, has been treading water during that time.

The analysts at New York-based 451 Group have been pushing VMWare to buy, buy, buy, even offering a helpful list of targets, which includes Terracotta, Chordiant, and Mulesource, among others. (Yes, Gemstone was on the list.)

It's investor excitement over clouds and virtualization that is driving VMWare. There's an attitude of use-it-or-lose it with all that stock value.

But at some point the music stops, and at some point you have to look at what you've bought and ask, is there a strategy there? Is there value there for companies that want to virtualize their systems, that want to build their own clouds?

Or were you just an open source rollup?

Topics: VMware, Hardware, Open Source, Virtualization

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15 comments
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  • RE: Is VMWare becoming just an open source rollup?

    What's with the slimy spam goo at the top of the 'talkback'? One more place to never shop.
    its.mike@...
    Reply Vote

    • RE: Is VMWare becoming just an open source rollup?

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      gorians
      Reply Vote

  • RE: Is VMWare becoming just an open source rollup?

    That spam website is full of viruses and worms. ZDnet needs to use Ad Block Plus. :-)
    VMware is okay, but needs to fix the bugs in its Work Stations so that 32 bit VM's can work with Windows 7 Pro 64. I tried to install Windows XP Pro 32 in a VMware VM with Windows 7 Pro 64 as host. Could not connect with any flash drives at all.
    ITOdeed
    Reply Vote

    • RE: Is VMWare becoming just an open source rollup?

      @Micrahard actually they should use something like akismet.
      VMWare is the Novell Netware of the late 2000's. Hyper-V will devastate VMWare in another 1-2 versions. I'm not making a quality statement on either product. Just saying that's how this works.
      hawks5999
      Reply Vote

      • RE: Is VMWare becoming just an open source rollup?

        @hawks5999 you sound like a Msoft fanboy, why does it work that way? Why is everyone so quick to point to Novell for any company that competes with Msoft. You didn't think people have learned how to co-exist with Msoft since then?
        esiebert7625@...
        Reply Vote

      • RE: Is VMWare becoming just an open source rollup?

        @hawks5999
        Actually, I'd compare VMWare to Citrix. Netware was a direct competitor to Windows Server. Citrix was an "add-on" that MS slowly integrated all the features of, until Citrix was nearly irrelevant. Hyper-V will do the same thing to VMWare...
        jred
        Reply Vote

      • What killed Novell...

        As a former Novell admin who now runs Wintel/Linux servers on VMWare, from my perspective what killed Novell was high licensing costs and a steep learning curve to administer the system. As a server OS, it was way better than Windows NT, but it took longer for a new administrator to ramp up. Whereas a Windows server could be up and running in less than an hour and managed (not well, mind you) by pretty much anyone with opposable thumbs and basic reading comprehension. And as far as licensing goes, with Microsoft's enterprise licensing, I was able to replace all my Novell servers with Wintel boxes for what one year's worth of Novell licensing cost, with no recurring fees.
        While I find the VMWare management tools easy to use and very intuitive, the high licensing costs for the enterprise level products may be their downfall. History has shown that regardless of how much better a tool is, cheap will pretty much always win the day.
        Snuffy.
        Reply Vote

    • Ad Block Plus is client-side, and only available for one browser anyways.

      Why would anyone want a 32-bit version of Windows nowadays?<br><br>Windows 7 x64 works fine under VMWare/VirtualBox/KVM on Linux (sans DirectX 10/11).<br><br><br>P.S.<br>Has anybody managed to figure out how to subscribe for reply notification in email since this sudden (and huge) unannounced change to the ZDNet interface that keeps throwing up errors?
      AzuMao
      Reply Vote

  • VMWare is going to have too much competition

    Every major player is getting in the virtualizatiion business, and OS vendors are starting to have their own virtualization solutions: Microsoft, Red Hat, and Canonical. I can't remember what Novell's solution is. Even Oracle's in the game now that it owns VirtualBox. Sure, taht started as a mostly consumer product, but you can say the same thing about VMWare, and VB has been adding server feature like crazy for several versions.

    Watch Hyper-V take over for Microsoft shops, RHES (libvirt) for the Unix shops, and Canonical's public/private cloud for the startups.
    daengbo
    Reply Vote

  • RE: Is VMWare becoming just an open source rollup?

    I'm glad VMware is around, even with all its quirks. I like the freedom of having multiple operating systems on one computer. I wish the work stations were more compatible with the latest versions of operating systems, such as Ubuntu and Windows 7 Pro 64.
    ITOdeed
    Reply Vote

  • RE: Is VMWare becoming just an open source rollup?

    @AzuMao. Some of us are still using 16 bit software, which won't run in 64 bit operating systems. My best business progs are 16 bit, and work much better and faster than the bloated Msoft crap that is on the market now. Vive la VMware!
    ITOdeed
    Reply Vote

  • RE: Is VMWare becoming just an open source rollup?

    VMWare started out by being an open source project before they became popular, so adding more open source items can't hurt.
    Andylb
    Reply Vote

    • It might hurt Microsoft, who deem open source a "cancer" (their word).

      [b] [/b]
      AzuMao
      Reply Vote

  • RE: Is VMWare becoming just an open source rollup?

    It does appear that there is some strategic confusion at VMWare. As far as their virtualization business is concerned, VMWare is ahead of Microsoft by years and knowing Microsoft, its Hyper-V will definitely catch up someday. Microsoft will comoditize core virtualization but that may be 5 years away. VMWare's value is not in core virtualization but in tools and at some point in time it should just embrace Hyper-V and start providing tools that also work on that environment.

    Comparison between Novell and VMWare are real. Novell reacted to the market by buying then's fad of Unix/Linux tools and VMWare is buying its way to new fad of Open source tools and applications.

    However, VMWare is positioning itself to the change much faster than Novell did and question remains if VMWare will manage to transform itself faster than Novell and become not just a survivor but actually thrive with new changes.
    ravinderpsingh
    Reply Vote

  • RE: Is VMWare becoming just an open source rollup?

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