VMware Acquires GemStone For Building Cloud Computing Applications. “The acquisition is the latest in a series of moves that signal VMware’s determination to become a supplier of software to future cloud builders. It already dominates the creation of virtual machines that run applications. Last July it acquired SpringSource for $420 million to get the leading framework for building Java applications,” reported Information Week.
The spokesman for what is now the application development side of VMware is Rod Johnson, former CEO of SpringSource and general manager of VMware’s SpringSource division. “We view GemStone as the kind of modern middleware that the Java developer base will need” for applications that run in cloud data centers, he said in an interview prior to the May 6 announcement. Later stating “Cloud computing is a distributed deployment model, and for that reason, caching and data accessibility are of far greater strategic importance than before.”
“We see this acquisition as a common step being taken by large organizations like VMware, who want to create a single-vendor-controlled virtualized cloud stack,” said Gigaspaces CEO Zeev Bikowsky, a competitor. Cloud users looking for flexibility should stick with Gigaspaces, he added.
