Opinion: EMC's cashing in on VMware IPO
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EMC's IPO of VMware could have far-reaching financial implications, including additional money for EMC to retain and hire talent, and a massive 50% market cap boost.
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(InfoWorld) - Virtual Iron and XenSource both are introducing new virtualization software to undercut on price the dominant player in the field, VMware. On Monday, Virtual Iron is set to start offering Version 3.1 of its enterprise-class virtualization platform for a license price of $499 per socket, which is less than 20 percent of the $2,875 per socket price for a comparable VMware license, according to Virtual Iron. Virtual Iron argues that VMware's pricing is a barrier to more widespread adoption of virtualization in data centers, citing IDC research that only 6 percent of data center operators deploy any type of virtualization. Also Monday, XenSource introduced new and upgraded virtualization products, also at sub-$1,000 prices. Both XenSource and Virtual Iron build their proprietary products on top of the open-source Xen platform for virtualization hypervisors. A hypervisor is technology that makes it possible for one computer to run multiple operating systems at the same time. VMware's products are not based on open source. Virtualization refers to software and other system management tools that are used to better utilize servers. Virtualization makes it possible for one physical server to run multiple applications simultaneously. Advanced virtualization features include tools to seamlessly move computing workloads from one physical server to another, set up infrastructure and test new software. Revenue at VMware, a wholly owned subsidiary of storage vendor EMC, grew 86 percent in EMC's fiscal third quarter to $188.5 million. If that pace keeps up, VMware's annualized revenue would be $750 million, VMware said. Virtual Iron and XenSource intend to slow that pace. "We are taking a very aggressive stand on pricing," said Mike Grandinetti, chief marketing officer for Virtual Iron. The Charlotte Observer newspaper in North Carolina uses Virtual Iron. It took 45 minutes to run a particular job on its legacy Unix-based servers, said Geoff Shorter, the Observer's IT infrastructure manager. VMware completed the same job in 11 to 13 minutes, but so did the less expensive Virtual Iron. The license for the high-end VMware product costs $5,750 to run on a dual-socket server, Shorter said. Virtual Iron's license is $499 per socket, so the total cost for a dual-socket machine license would be $998. Pricing for XenSource's XenEnterprise starts at for $488 for an annual subscription license for a dual-socket server or $750 for a perpetual license. XenServer for Windows, introduced Monday, sells for $99 per dual-socket server, per year. It has fewer features than XenEnterprise. "Our intention is to dramatically shift the landscape under VMware," said Simon Crosby, XenSource's chief technology officer. Virtualization is following a classic economic model of an early mover dominating a market and charging a premium, soon followed by challengers competing on price, said Gordon Haff, principal IT advisor at Illuminata Inc., a technology research company. Haff said enterprises that have deployed VMware are seeing a positive return on their investment despite the price and he doesn't think price alone is keeping enterprises from adopting virtualization. "Even if virtualization software were free, it wouldn't become ubiquitous because of the complexity of the implementation," he said.
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Despite its success with its VMware processor virtualization software, EMC Corp is seeing only slow take-up of the v-word on its home front of block-level storage.
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The digital media software developer deserves more attention from investors.
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(InfoWorld) - Global IT expansion this year is expected to be modest, but vendors that demonstrate nimbleness and creativity are being rewarded. Market indices have declined as traders brace for a slowdown after corporate share prices rose steadily over the past seven months. But IT investors are still jumping on the bandwagon for companies that are seen making wise investments and restructuring decisions. Traders applauded EMC's decision, announced Wednesday,Â to offer 10 percent of its VMware virtualization software subsidiary in an IPO. Despite a general market downturn Thursday due to concerns over the U.S. housing market, EMC shares were trading at $14.58 Thursday afternoon, up by $0.99. The spin-off lets the public inject cash into a part of the company offering trendy virtualization technology while allowing users and investors to more easily analyze the core traditional storage business, which many analysts feel is undervalued. Hewlett-Packard shares also remained high this week in the wake of its Monday announcement thatÂ it will buy business transactions monitoring software supplier Bristol TechnologyÂ for an undisclosed amount. HP said Bristol will help strengthen its business technology optimization product offerings. Cisco Systems shares jumped Wednesday,Â after it issued its earnings report Tuesday, and stayed high. Cisco is doing well in several key areas. Beating analyst forecasts for sales last quarter, Cisco reported that revenue increased more than 27 percent to $8.4 billion and profit grew 39.7 percent to $1.9 billion, compared to the year-earlier quarter. Key to company growth were storage products and developing markets -- precisely what market observers are looking for. Brokerage Robert W. Baird & Co. upgraded Cisco to "outperform" from "neutral." User demand for security, storage, wireless devices, and server optimization technology remains high, analysts say. Small businesses and developing economies are forecast to be the main drivers of growth. "The opportunity to provide SMBs with advanced technology will continue to grow significantly throughout the world in 2007," according to the report, from Ray Boggs, vice president for Small/Medium Business and Home Office research at IDC. Companies positioning to capitalize on trends are even, sometimes, forgiven losses. Even though ISP EarthLink Tuesday reported a fourth-quarter loss of $24.8 million, compared with a year-earlier profit of $29.2 million, it got kudos for making efforts to target growth opportunities. "The industry is shifting, and it is focusing on new opportunities like broadband, wireless Internet and Internet telephony in a variety of marketplaces around the USA, " said telecom analyst Jeff Kagan. EarthLink's loss was mainly attributed to its investment in Helio, the company's wireless joint venture with South Korea's SK Telecom. Despite the loss, Goldman Sachs analyst Anthony Noto upgraded the stock to "neutral" from "sell." "We believe the flexibility of the company to cut these investments or restructure via a leveraged buyout, management buyout or recapitalization limits the downside," Noto wrote in a research note. Â
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BOSTON -- EMC Corp.'s fourth-quarter profit jumped 35 percent, beating Wall Street expectations, but the data storage vendor's results were overshadowed by disappointment over a technology firm in which EMC owns a majority stake.
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InfoWorld - EMC has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Valyd Software, a Hyderabad, India, vendor of software for securing enterprise data. EMC did not disclose the sum it will pay for Valyd, a privately held company.
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Montalvo Systems has a multi-core chip, but not all of the cores are the same. That in part explains why investors have put money into it.
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Ziff Davis - EMC's latest tech acquisition could make the vendor's SAN management software the top of the heap, analysts say. The move could spark a software buying spree among competitors.
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77 per cent profit boost EMC saw its stock price leap more than eight per cent today, thanks in part to its 86 per cent stake in the hotter-than-hot virtualization outfit, VMWare.â¦
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Pots and kettles go flying With an IPO and a major server virtualization battle looming, VMware has turned aggressive in its fight with Microsoft.â¦
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EMC hopes to shake up the NAS market this week when it announces a low-priced offering that delves into territory staked out by NAS pioneer Network Appliance.
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(InfoWorld) - Three years after being bought by EMC, VMware is going public.Â EMC announced plans Wednesday to offer 10 percent of its virtualization software subsidiary in an initial public offering (IPO). The offering will "unlock more of VMware's value for EMC shareholders," and help the company "retain and attract the software industry's top talent," EMC Chairman, President, and CEO Joe Tucci said in a statement. "We think now is the point where the planets are aligned and this makes sense," Tucci said on a conference call with financial analysts. WhenÂ EMC acquired VMwareÂ in 2004, it had 300 employees; today it has 3,000, he said. "The growth rate of this company has been phenomenal." EMC plans to file a registration statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in late March or early April for the planned IPO, and the shares could be available for sale some time in the second quarter, said David Goulden, executive vice president and chief financial officer of EMC. The shares to be put on the market will be new shares, not ones already owned by EMC, Goulden said. The proceeds will "provide VMware with the financial resources it needs to achieve its full growth potential and provide EMC with the potential to return a portion of the original investment in VMware to EMC shareholders, while enabling them to continue to enjoy the vast majority ownership in this strategic and fast-growing business," Goulden said. Virtualization, which allows a server to better run multiple applications simultaneously, has helped businesses reduce the number of servers they need, reduce their energy consumption and assist in data center disaster recovery efforts, said Diane Greene, who founded VMware in 1998. She is president of VMware and executive vice president of EMC. "The IPO is a powerful way for us to accelerate our vision of a pervasive, industry standard virtual infrastructure. We see an incredible opportunity ahead of us," Greene said. More than 10 percent of new x86 server workloads are running on VMware virtualization software, and VMware is used by more than 20,000 customers, Greene said. Analysts have recently speculated on whether EMC would spin off VMware, said Gordon Haff, principal IT advisor with research firm Illuminata Inc. "EMC wants to get some of the money while VMware is clearly a hot property," he said. "On the other hand, they clearly want to retain a very large chunk of VMware." EMC's stock (EMC) has been stuck in the $10 to $15 range for the last three years. The IPO was announced after the New York Stock Exchange closed for the day. In after-hours trading, EMC shares rose $0.91 to $14.55. Tucci's comments about unlocking VMware's value "might be less politely phrased as 'hopefully getting the shareholders off my butt,'" Haff said. VMware is an early leader in one of the IT industry's hottest market segments. The company's revenue was up 83 percent in 2006, totalling $709 million, EMC said. The IPO should generate capital for VMware to invest in innovation, said Allan Krans, an analyst with Technology Business Research. Although VMware is the industry leader in server virtualization software, MicrosoftÂ is expected to introduce an update of its Microsoft Virtual Server in the fourth quarter of 2007, which could increase competitive pressure on VMware.
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EMC introduced updated VMware products that include backup technologies it gained with last year's purchase of Avamar Inc.
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EMC has made yet another software acquisition, picking up Dantz Development Corp. today for help in the backup market. Dantz is the 15th software maker EMC has picked up since 2000, along with big names such as VMware and Legato.
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VMware, the EMC subsidiary whose software lets a computer run multiple operating systems simultaneously in separate &quot;virtual machines,&quot; has grown a step more ambitious.
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A major shareholder wants EMC Corp. to give shareholders a chance to vote on the pay of its top executives, bringing the Hopkinton data-storage giant into a growing national campaign to scrutinize executive compensation at dozens of large companies.