Sun nabs innotek's 20MB of open source, virtualized goodness
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Sun Microsystems has gone very granola by buying desktop virtualization software player innotek. (The small 'i' stands for big innovation or something like that.)
Innotek pushes software called VirtualBox (less than 20MB) that lets developers run multiple operating systems and display them side-by-side on their screen. So, you can hop back and forth, testing your code across Windows, Linux, Mac and OpenSolaris. Beyond the development angle, VirtualBox handles basis PC and server virtualization tasks.
We're calling this a granola buy for a couple reasons. First off, German-based innotek has released VirtualBox under the GPL. Secondly, look at these folks' web site.
American - make that savvy - readers may find the innotek name hilarious, since it's also the name of the main company in the classic film OfficeSpace, although that's Innotech, which competes with Intertrode. Also, you do not want to confuse the German innotek with the American Innotek, which sells pet collars. Hit up .de, please.
[Okay, okay. It's Initech in the movie, but, come on, how many chances does one get to use this gag? - Ed]
With virtualization earning "all the rage" status, the large vendors have shifted into "no wee vendor is safe" mode. Market leader VMware has used its IPO momentum to buy a number of smaller software and services firms, and Microsoft made a desktop splash last month by buying Calista.
Like VMware, Microsoft and Citrix, Sun wants to offer a broad set of virtualization software. It's selling all of that code under the xVM brand.
Sun's software chief Rich Green used the innotek purchase as an excuse to highlight not only xVM but also any other Sun software product he could remember.
"VirtualBox provides Sun with the perfect complement to our recently announced Sun xVM Server product," Green said. “Where Sun xVM Server is designed to enable dynamic IT at the heart of the datacenter, VirtualBox is ideal for any laptop or desktop environment and will align perfectly with Sun’s other developer focused assets such as GlassFish, OpenSolaris, OpenJDK and soon MySQL as well as a wide range of community open source projects, enabling developers to quickly develop, test and deploy the next generation of applications."
Sun declined to disclose terms of the acquisition but expects the deal to close in the next couple of months. ®
COMMENTS
Good web site, good app
What's the author on about? I wish more web sites were like that.
I've been a heavy VMWare user for a while but have only tried it out of interest a couple of weeks ago. Pretty much as good as VMWare and I would agree it is faster. I hope Sun look after it well since it shows a lot of promise.
Fishworks
If, as previously reported in el Reg, Sun have more appliance like versions of Solaris in the offing, this acquisition means that they can distribute both the virtualisation software and a canned appliance OS image.
So the "suck it and see" barrier is as low as a free download, and you don't need to have hardware available, just a few gig in any old Windows box: once you've taken it through its paces, you can then look to get a real appliance for a proper workload.
My worry, as ever with Sun, is that they will place all this technology out cafeteria style, and forget "The Chef Recommends" to help people through it all.
BTW, I quite agree, Ashlee's usually fun and robust style was a bit off the mark here. Everybody has off days - so lets just move on.
Obviously an OpenSolaris play
This is obviously a way for Sun to get techies to download, run and learn OpenSolaris - coz there's NO WAY I'd ever sacrifice Mac OS X as my host for anything less. Later on, it might become a way for Sun to offer app-hosting, by uploading your VMs to their cloud a la Amazon? Who knows...
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