Virtualization-software maker VMware Inc. agreed to be acquired by Broadcom Inc. on Thursday in an roughly $61 billion deal that will triple the chip maker’s software business, and has an usual provision that lets VMware look for another buyer.
The deal has been signed off on by the boards of both companies, while pending a final shareholder vote. Founded by entrepreneur Diane Greene, her husband Mel Rosenblum and three others in 1998, VMware was one of the pioneers of the concept of virtualization, which lets different operating systems run on the same hardware, simultaneously, as if they were all running on their own machine.
Broadcom has made it a practice of buying older, forgotten software companies and using private-equity tactics to clean them up and make them more efficient. Broadcom’s first foray into software was in 2018 to buy CA Inc., best known for its mainframe software.Cowen & Co. analyst Matthew Ramsay, though, believes the deal would be a major coup for Broadcom.
tpoletti Microsoft, if it doesn't raise anti-trust issues. Much better strategic fit.