VMware has agreed to acquire Shavlik Technologies; the terms of transaction were not disclosed. Shavlik was founded in 1993, is headquartered in Minnesota, and offers a full suite of products to manage physical or virtual servers and laptops/desktops. Shavlik is no stranger to VMware as the companies jointly developed VMware GO, a SaaS based IT management offering.
While Shavlik is an excellent acquisition for VMware as their technology is solid and they are sure to grow faster under VMware’s umbrella, the question is why? VMware paints this acquisition as a way to increase their penetration within small and medium business (SMB). Mark Shavlik, President and CEO, writes via his blog, “We will also be entering global markets much faster by working with Managed Service Providers (MSPs) and Solution Providers. This enables more companies around the world to utilize our SaaS and On-Premise solutions.” If Shavlik’s solution can scale to meet the needs of MSPs and Solution Providers, then is it really simply a SMB solution?
Perhaps it’s just me, but this whole thing seems a bit scripted for my taste. From the press release to the blog post to the media coverage, it feels a bit like listening to politicians running through their talking points. In an effort to shield themselves from the wrath of traditional IT management companies such as Symantec, HP, LANDesk, and IBM, Is VMware intentionally downplaying Shavlik’s capabilities? After all, VMware has acquired a company that has full management capabilities including antivirus, patch management, configuration management, asset management, and power management.
At a time when VMware’s Enterprise dominance is being challenged by both Microsoft and Red Hat, Shavlik looks to be a defensive acquisition to protect the lower end of the market. However, how many people have heard about VMware Go prior to this acquisition? Will VMware roll Shavlik’s products into Ionix rationalizing the overlap with Configuresoft? Does this help VMware with Hybrid Clouds? Public Clouds? Workloads?
More importantly, has VMware become so large that they have lost the ability to innovate and disrupt a market that they created? This is not VMware’s first acquisition from their 3rd party partner ecosystem, and I suspect it is not their last. VMworld 2011 is certainly going to be interesting!
PlatenReport 