Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Microsoft's powerful marketing engine, Visio has become a major player in the
computer software industry.
VMware
VMware is another company whose business is exclusively dependent on com-
puters and software, and it could not exist without them. The name is a compres-
sion of “virtual machine,” and that is an interesting technology.
The VMware company was founded in 1998 in Palo Alto, California, which
is in the midst of Silicon Valley. The group of founders included Diane Green,
Mendel Rosenblum, Scott Devine, Edward Wang, and Edouard Bougnion. Mendel
Rosenblum was Chief Scientist and Diane Green was President.
Software runs on specific computers and specific operating systems. A virtual
machine is a software package that imitates a hardware/software combination so
that applications can be run on computers and operating systems different from the
ones originally intended.
VMware was acquired by the larger EMC Corporation in 2004 for about $625
million. In 2007, EMC had an IPO for part of the VMware stock, which opened at
$29 per share and ended at $51 per share.
In 2007, Diane Green was terminated by the board, and later Mendel Rosen-
blum resigned. Things were apparently not happy inside the VMware/EMC mer-
ger.
VMware has both commercial and open-source applications. This is an unusual
combination but is becoming more frequent in the software industry.
VMware's products include several forms of hypervisors , which allow guest
operating systems to run on artificial, virtual hardware platforms. VMware also
supports dual-boot systems, or running two different operating systems on the
same platform.
Virtual machines offer some significant cost savings for commercial software
development companies and also for large software users. Suppose a software
vendor was building an application that was planned to be released in versions
for Microsoft Windows, Apple Macintosh, and Linux. Without virtualization, the
vendor would need separate hardware devices for each. With virtualization, a
single computer can be made to appear as though it were three different machines.
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