Intel Capital to Buy $218.5 Million Share of VMware
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Intel Corp. said Monday it plans to buy a US$218.5 million stake in the software firm VMware Inc., bolstering the companies&#39; existing agreement to run VMware&#39;s virtualization software on Intel&#39;s processors.
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London-based private-equity firm BC Partners was in the lead to purchase satellite operator Intelsat Ltd. for about $5 billion plus the assumption of about $11.5 billion in debt, The Wall Street Journal Online reported.
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Standard and Poor&#39;s Equity Research reiterated a &quot;hold&quot; rating and $27 target price on Intel (nasdaq: INTC - news - people ). The research firm said the chipmaker&#39;s deal with Nvidia (nasdaq: NVDA - news - people
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Asset management company Federated Investors Inc. on Thursday said it will buy Alliance Capital Management Holding LP&#39;s cash management business.
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(InfoWorld) - As large enterprises embrace the concept of virtualization to more efficiently manage their information technology systems, vendors are now targeting the small-to-medium size market. VMwareÂ on Monday is introducing a new low-cost service plan to give small-to-medium businesses (SMB) a taste of what virtualization can do for them. It's entry level bundle includes a free download of the VMware Server software for virtualizing servers and a $1,500 support plan called Virtual Center. Although less than the $5,000 support program for enterprise customers, the $1,500 support plan is limited to three two-socket physical servers that could be converted into multiple virtual servers. If an SMB customer wants to virtualize more servers, the support would cost an extra $400 for each extra server. Virtualization refers to the practice of managing a data center holistically to make the best use of the hardware available, reduce the capital cost of new servers and the operational cost of electricity to run them. Virtualization software like VMware Server makes it possible for one server to run multiple software applications at the same time. VMware sees growth potential in the SMB market, given that 70 percent of 1.2 million downloads of the free VMware Server software since June 2006 have been to SMB customers, said Ben Matheson, vice president of product management for VMware, a division of storage vendor EMC. He defines small-to-medium businesses as those with fewer than 1,000 employees or an average of 100 physical servers in their businesses. "There is a lot of market awareness of the value of virtualization in the enterprise...but we think it's useful for all companies," said Matheson. He anticipates many of the SMBs downloading the free VMware Server are just taking virtualization out for a test drive. "There are definitely a lot of trials, getting it into their labs and using things like virtual appliances and testing them. But there is also quite a bit of production use," he said. Server vendors have also been making overtures to the SMB market. Hewlett-Packard began offeringÂ a Virtualization Assessment Service on Feb. 1 to analyze an IT infrastructure to see how it might benefit from virtualization. The service is being offered through HP's resellers who typically serve its SMB customers, while HP's own sales and engineering force tends to large enterprise customers. IBM even calls its initiative a "Virtualization Test Drive." IBM launched in 2006 a virtualization education and sales initiative targeted at SMBs. IBM said that more than 65 percent of their virtualization sales are driven by IBM partners targeting SMBs.
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Hewlett-Packard said it will buy Opsware for $1.6 billion in cash to bulk up HPâs data-center software line.
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Intel Corp  said on  Friday it would buy Havok Inc, a provider of software and  services to the games and movie industries, as the world's top  chipmaker seeks to beef up its visual computing and graphics  efforts.
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International Business Machines Corp.  said on Tuesday that it agreed to buy privately held software maker Vallent Corp. to boost its line of software offerings.
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These days, numbers just seem to blur together. Microsoft is thinking about paying $500 million for 5 percent of Facebook, which would make that company worth $10 billion. VMware, in which parent company EMC recently sold a stake to the public, is currently valued at $30 billion (that's just for VMware, not the whole of EMC).
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(InfoWorld) - The president of virtualization software leader VMware Wednesday questioned the strategy of rivals that are integrating virtualization functionality into their operating systems. Diane Greene made the comments at the third and final day of the Morgan Stanley Technology Conference in San Francisco. VMware, a subsidiary of storage vendor EMC, doubled revenue in EMC's latest quarterly report, compared to the year ago quarter, as enterprises embrace VMware's virtualization software to make more efficient use of the servers in their data centers. RivalsÂ like Red Hat and Microsoft have responded to VMware's dominance by integrating virtualization into coming new operating systems. Red Hat is introducing Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 next week, and Microsoft's new Windows server OS is due later this year. But Greene, in discussing virtualization with analysts for the investment firm, said she wonders how effective the competition's virtualization features can be. "Traditionally, the operating system manages the hardware and manages the application. Once you virtualize with a hypervisor, that is now what is managing the hardware, not the OS," Greene said, in a presentation that was distributed via webcast. "Now the operating system is just managing the application. So certainly Windows and Red Hat are moving to integrate virtualization into their OS, but part of the value proposition seems to be lost when you do that." Spokespeople for Microsoft and Red Hat did not respond to requests for comment. VMware is a strong contributor to the earnings of parent company EMC, which also sells storage hardware and security software. Greene also is executive vice president of EMC. Revenue for VMware increased to $232 million in the fourth quarter of 2006, 101 percent more than a year prior. The growth comes from increased demand for VMware Infrastructure 3, a virtualization software suite for servers and storage networks. VMware's growth prompted EMC to recently announce plans toÂ spin off 10 percent of VMware in an IPO. EMC executives said they anticipate releasing the prospectus later this month for the IPO, expected about midyear. Greene noted the stock sale will benefit VMware employees as well as potential shareholders. "Our stock-based compensation will track our performance, and that is the ideal model," she said. Also at the Morgan Stanley conference, Greene acknowledged that virtualizing servers, which helps them use more of their designed capacity, may suppress server sales growth. But she said many customers are upgrading servers as they introduce virtualization into their operations. Those new servers are more high-end products, with greater processing power, and should yield higher margins for server vendors. EMC reported fourth quarter 2006 financial results Jan. 23, posting net income of $389 million, or $0.17 a share, on revenue of $3.21 billion. It edged out analysts' estimates of $0.16 a share. Â
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Chip maker Freescale Semiconductor Inc   said on Friday that it had agreed to be bought for  $17.6 billion, or $40 a share, by a consortium of private  equity firms led by Blackstone Group.
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Hewlett-Packard Co.   agreed on Tuesday to buy Mercury Interactive Corp.   for about $4.5 billion in stock, or $52 per share, in a bid to  expand the computer maker's business software operations.
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Intel Corp . will invest about  $219 million for a stake in VMware Inc. and a seat on the board  of the Silicon Valley software company that parent EMC Corp.   is taking public, the companies said on Monday.
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By JORDAN ROBERTSON SAN JOSE, Calif. - Intel Corp. plans to spend between $1 billion and $1.5 billion to overhaul its semiconductor production facility in New Mexico to manufacture computer chips with next-generation technology.
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(InfoWorld) - Hewlett-Packard plans to buy datacenter automation software vendor Opsware for about $1.6 billion. HP said Monday that it had signed a definitive agreement to acquire Opsware in a cash tender deal that values the company at $14.25 per share. Opsware's stock was $10.28 at the close of Friday's trading. Once the deal closes, HP plans to combine the Opsware software with its own enterprise IT management software, as the new acquisition becomes part of HP's software business. "The acquisition of Opsware is intended to enable HP Software to help our customers resolve one of their critical pain points: controlling the increasing complexity and cost of managing the datacenter," Thomas Hogan, senior vice president of software at HP, said in a news release. HP has been steadily expanding its business technology optimization portfolio over the last couple of years through acquisitions, including the purchases ofÂ Mercury InteractiveÂ andÂ Peregrine Systems. After HP has closed the acquisition, the vendor expects to appoint Opsware CEO Ben Horowitz as head of its business technology optimization organization, reporting to Hogan. Subject to regulatory approval, HP hopes to close the purchase before the end of October. Opsware System software automates data center operations including provisioning, configuration, and deployment. Â
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In a long-rumored move, security software maker Symantec said Thursday that it will buy storage specialist Veritas Software in a deal worth roughly $13.5 billion.
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Symantec Corp. SYMC.O, a maker of  security software, on Thursday said it would buy storage  software maker Veritas Software Corp. VRTS.O for $13.5  billion, creating the world's fourth-largest software company.