Cisco buys into VMware

Stephen Withers
Monday, 30 July 2007 06:49

IT Industry - Strategy

Cisco is set to purchase $US150 million worth of shares in VMware from EMC.

If the deal goes through, Cisco will own around 1.6 percent of VMware.

Consideration will be given to appointing a Cisco executive to the VMware board sometime in the future.

"Cisco's purchase is intended to strengthen inter-company collaboration towards accelerating customer adoption of VMware virtualization products with Cisco networking infrastructure and the development of customer solutions that address the intersection of virtualization and networking technologies," company officials said.

Earlier this month, Intel Capital and VMware announced that the former will purchase approximately 2.5 percent of VMware shares for $218.5 million.

VWware was acquired by EMC in 2004. According to the company's web site, an initial public offering of approximately 10 percent of EMC shares is scheduled for mid-2007.