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VMware acquires SpringSource for $362 million

By Sean Michael Kerner on August 10, 2009 4:13 PM

From the 'VMware did what?' files:

Virtualization vendor VMware today announced the acquisition of Java web development and middleware vendor SpringSource for $362 million.

SpringSource is the vendor behind the popular open source Spring Framework that is used and supported by numerous Java middleware vendors including Red Hat JBoss and IBM Websphere.

VMware expects the deal to close in the third quarter of 2009. The total value of the deal could top $400 million when it's all said and done as VMware is also taking on $58 million of unvested stock and options in addition of the $362 million of cash and equity that VMware is offering privately held SpringSource.

This is a deal that will change the dynamic for VMware in my opinion. Now VMware moves from being a virtualization vendor to being a virtualization vendor with development, middleware and server management for both physical and virtual environments.

Earlier this year SpringSource made an acquisition of its own by acquiring open source systems management and monitoring vendor Hyperic.

Beyond acquisitions, SpringSource released a new commercially supported Apache Tomcat Java middleware server this year as well as a new tools release with Spring Tools Suite 2.0. Coming just around the corner is a major new release of SpringSource's Spring Framework with the Spring 3.0 release set for later year.

So why is VMware buying them?

"Today's modern computing environments are moving to an application and data-centric world powered by state of the art virtualized and cloud computing platforms," said Paul Maritz, president and chief executive officer, VMware in a statement. "The combination of SpringSource and VMware capitalizes on this shift and places us right at the intersection of the most important forces in the software market today - virtualization, modern application frameworks and cloud computing."

Together with SpringSource in hand, VMware plans to develop integrated Platform as a Service (PaaS) solutions - that's virtualization and middleware for enterprise apps. It's a model that VMware has been enabling for a while and now with SpringSource they will add a critical component.

Will this put other Java middleware vendors at a competitive disadvantage? Maybe. If an enterprise is looking for a complete end to end VMware solution, this combined offering might be tough to beat.

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