VMware Inc. (NYSE: VMW) acquired Israeli start-up B-Hive Ltd. 18 months ago for $60 million, and turned it into its local R&D center. Virtualization has been a hot topic in the past two years, and the acquisition was not out of the ordinary.
Virutalization company VMware took its Israeli operation seriously, doubling the Herzliya Pituah-based unit's workforce in the past year to 70 employees. VMware expanded activity in Israel to new projects beyond B-Hive's original enterprise computer networks management product.
VMware R&D director Julia Austin, who is responsible for the Israeli unit, is currently visiting Israel. "We consider the local activity as a major opportunity for us," she told "Globes". "We want to see in Israel as our outstanding center of excellence outside the US."
Austin is also responsible for collaboration with academic institutions. VMware provides content for courses that enable participation via the Internet. For the company, this is a fairly obvious step. The company dominates the market for virtualization, remote accessing of functional computers or servers on a single hardware infrastructure. The technology was originally developed at Stanford University in California.
Austin's visit is part of a larger event, in which, for the first time, VMware, Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CSCO), and EMC Corporation (NYSE: EMC) held a one-day seminar on their joint initiatives in cloud computer technology, a technology for obtaining computer resources and programs via remote server centers.
The three companies created the Virtual Computing Environment (VCE) coalition last month. Each company provides its strong point hardware (EMC), virtualization (VMware), and networking equipment (Cisco) - to create a comprehensive product platform.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on December 3, 2009
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