As everyone digests the big news that VMware intends to buy SpringSource for $420 million--its biggest acquisition ever--I'm inclined to think that the move primarily represents a dedicated step from VMware away from just being a virtualization player. As we've discussed before,?VMware has been tightly squeezed by competition from open source and free, bundled virtualization software offerings. Its relatively new CEO Paul Maritz (who was a long time Microsoft executive), knows what it is for proprietary platforms to face free, open source competition, and SpringSource can help VMware compete very directly with Red Hat, particularly in the application server market.
Still, along with Oracle's acquisition of Sun Microsystems, the move from VMware provides yet another example of a smaller company that has retained a strong focus on open source being acquired by a much larger, proprietary competitor. Just before last year ended, we predicted?that open source mergers and acquisitions would increase dramatically this year, but who would have thought that we would see such huge acquisitions? What are the implications for VMware, Red Hat, and open source?
