VMware agrees to acquire Nicira

Marketwire

PALO ALTO, CA–(Marketwire – Jul 23, 2012) – VMware, Inc. (NYSE: VMW), the global leader in virtualization and cloud infrastructure, today announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Nicira, Inc., a pioneer in software-defined networking (SDN) and a leader in network virtualization for open source initiatives.

“VMware has led the server virtualization revolution, and we have the opportunity to do the same in datacenter and cloud networking,” said Paul Maritz, chief executive officer, VMware. ”The acquisition of Nicira adds to our portfolio of networking assets and positions VMware to be the industry leader in software-defined networking.”

VMware will acquire Nicira for approximately $1.05 billion in cash plus approximately $210 million of assumed unvested equity awards. The acquisition is subject to regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions. The parties expect the acquisition to close during the second half of 2012. The acquisition has been approved by the boards of directors of both VMware and Nicira and the stockholders of Nicira.

This is very cool, I wonder if we will see next generation products and services resulting from this announcement in the near future, anything VMware can do to further virtualization as a platform and maintain their own innovation and offerings has to be a good thing particularly if we can make adoption and integration of our technologies with the cloud – to stream applications, virtualization platforms and networks down a wire. Check out these two blog posts – http://nicira.com/blog/to-infinity and http://blogs.vmware.com

Category: News, VMWare