Sun Micro Wants Deeper Virtualization (JAVA, CTXS, VMW)

Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ:JAVA) has announced that it has entered into a stock purchase agreement to acquire Stuttgart, Germany-based innotek.  Sun is calling innotek the provider of the leading edge, open source virtualization software called "VirtualBox."  VirtualBox has had over 4 million downloads since January 2007.

As part of Sun Micro’s xVM portfolio, VirtualBox will have the support of Sun’s global development community, field resources and partners to make VirtualBox even more compelling to developers and end users, driving greater adoption across a broad set of communities.  This will also enable desktops or laptops to run Windows, Mac, Linus, or Solaris O/S side by side.

This is after Sun announced it would acquire MySQL last month.  Financial terms were not disclosed, although this is listed as "not material" to earnings.

• See our exclusive interview with Ed Walsh of VirtualIron, a virtualization competitor.

Citrix Systems (NASDAQ: CTXS) saw a brief rally after it acquired XenSource for virtualization and we all know how the hotter-than-hot VMware (NYSE: VMW) IPO brought virtualization front and center in the investment community.

Jon C. Ogg
February 12, 2008