server
Server and virtualization acquisitions were topped in 2009 with Oracle’s acquisition on Sun Microsystems for $7.4 billion. This acquisition was joined by Oracle’s acquisition of Virtual Iron, a vendor of Xen hypervisor software and Rackable’s acquisition of ailing SGI.
Oracle acquisition of Sun is now awaiting approval by the European Union, a hurdle that will soon be surpassed. Once approval occurs, Oracle can set about repositioning Sun’s SPARC- and x86-based servers and adding them to its database portfolio. The company’s acquisition of Virtual Iron will give oracle management tools to compete in the server virtualization market against Microsoft, VMware and Citrix. Virtual Iron’s technology connects multiple x86 servers under a single system image. Rackable acquired server and storage products from SGI in 2009 for a paltry $25 million cash and renamed itself SGI in the process.
Other acquisitions of note included EMC’s acquisition of Configuresoft, a vendor of server configuration, change management and compliance software. The Configuresof bid allows EMC to bolster its virtualization solutions for the data center. Microsoft also acquired a supercomp8uting company – Interactive Supercomputing, a company that specializes in parallel computing for the desktop.
