VMware Buys VAR To Push Desktop Virtualization To Channel

VMware has acquired one of its leading solution providers in a move to help boost the channel as it ramps up its virtual desktop PC business.

The Palo Alto, Calif.-based server virtualization company said it bought Foedus, a Portsmouth, N.H.-based provider of virtualization technologies and services.

Foedus is one of VMware's premier partners in North America, and has developed a lot of services, intellectual property, and best practices around VMware and other vendors, said Julie Eades, director of worldwide channel marketing for VMware.

The acquisition gives VMware a new base from which it can offer services expertise to help solution providers work with the vendor in the nascent desktop virtualization market, along with other services in such areas as compliance and remote office infrastructure, Eades said.

"We are looking to leverage that expertise to help partners with our VDI (Virtual Desktop Infrastructure) services and accelerate other services in 2008," she said.

About 75 percent of VMware's sales goes through the channel, Eades said.

VMware has also increased on-line training to help solution providers get sales and technical certification for the virtual desktop market, Eades said.

"In the field, we also do a lot of solutions training, including virtual desktops," she said. "I have a great business in the server virtualization side. We now want to exploit the desktop side."

VMware is only one of a number of technology vendors racing to put their stakes in the virtual desktop PC ground.

Citrix, Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., is building a complete virtualization infrastructure, including server, desktop PC, and application virtualization, thanks to a number of recent acquisitions, including the $500 million acquisition of server virtualization vendor XenSource last October.

Other tier-one vendors moving fast to secure a part of the virtual desktop PC market are Microsoft, Redmond, Wash., and Hewlett-Packard, Palo Alto, Calif.

These companies are also competing with smaller focused vendors such as Pano Logic, Menlo Park, Calif.; ClearCube Technology, Austin, Texas; and Ericom, Closter, N.J.

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