VMware launches Israeli R&D center

"We're open to investment ideas."

It may be business as usual at VMware, but in the past 24 hours the focus of interest in the company changed radically after the replacement of the company's CEO, Diane Greene, who was one of its founders. It was ironic that, by the time VMware finally held a press conference in Israel, the least interesting topic there was virtualization.

VMware is opening a local development center following the acquisition of B-hive Networks announced at the end of May. For the past eighteen months, VMware has operated a regional slaes center in Israel. The acquisition is in one of the hottest areas in virtualization, which is automated management of enterprise computer infrastructures. In the case of VMware and B-hive, the acquisition will strengthen management of enterprise applications through monitoring of performance and communications with users.

Karl Rumelhart, senior product manager at VMware, said that the acquisition was the first stage of the company's involvement in the technological options the Israel market had to offer in infrastructures for management of enterprise computing. "We want to be in this market with the group we acquired," he says, "If you look at the Israeli companies in management and security, this is the right place to be to find opportunities to progress in this field."

VMware says it plans "further investments in the region." Will this just be in areas connected to management infrastructures, or in other things too? The company's representatives would not elaborate, but, talking to "Globes", Jennifer Anderson, a senior manager in the company's research and development department, said, "We're open to ideas. It's a new field, and there's a lot happening around it. It would be very arrogant of us to say that what we're doing is the best even in the basic engine of virtualization. We're actively looking for options for further investments."

Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes.co.il - on July 9, 2008

© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2008

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