Embarcadero Technologies announced that they signed a definitive asset purchase agreement with Borland Software Corporation to purchase its CodeGear division. The transaction is expected to close in 30 to 60 days. By combining these comapnies in development tools and database tools, Embarcadero will be able to address the growing productivity and resource challenges companies face as a result of different applications and diverse database platforms. With more than $100 million in annual revenue and over 500 employees worldwide, the combined companies will operate under the Embarcadero Technologies name.

VMware announced that its virtualization solutions are saving customers tons in costs and CO2 emissions. Using VMware virtualization, customers can consolidate 10 or more physical machines onto a single server and reduce power consumption and cost by 80-90 percent. VMware customers that have moved from a 1:1 application to server ratio to 60:1 or higher have achieved millions of dollars in capital and operational savings.

The Morph Application Platform for Java, a Platform as a Service (PaaS) that virtualizes the application environment and leverages cloud computing resources such as the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) is now in limited developer preview. Webtide, the team behind Jetty, has brought that Java web server to the Morph Application Platform. Through its developer advice and support, Webtide has played a key role in the implementation of Java into the Morph Application Platform to extend the functionality to include deploying and delivering Java applications.

AMD, which hasn't penetrated the commercial space, is gonna try to pick up some share with a Business Class line of energy-efficient commercial desktops and notebooks targeted at SMBs, government and education. The desktops are based on seven AMD 'image stable' new triple-core and quad-core Phenom and dual-core Athlon chips good for the next two years; the laptops will use the company's upcoming Puma platform, due in the second half.

Liquid Web launched a Microsoft Windows virtual private server (VPS) offering powered by Parallels Virtuozzo Containers. The offering will be delivered from Liquid Web's two fully owned and operated mid-western datacenters. This represents an expanded partnership with Parallels, who already supplies Liquid Web with Parallels Plesk Control Panel software, which is bundled with all Windows dedicated server offerings.

GemStone Systems and Synechron announced a strategic partnership to address key customer pain points. Through the implementation and integration of GemStone solutions with existing enterprise applications, customers will be able to achieve low-latency, predictable, high-throughput data sharing and event distribution. GemStone and Synechron will work in close coordination on several key projects and complement each other's business domain and technology expertise to deliver turnkey solutions to clients.

Veeam Software introduced a program designed to support and enhance the virtualization practices of top value-added resellers, systems integrators and consultants. Veeam ProPartner includes a members-only online portal with fast access to NFR license keys, discounts on Veeam software for resale, lead qualification support, direct access to Veeam engineering and support resources, co-marketing support programs, and a partners-only knowledgebase that will grow over time. As a 100% channel-centric organization, Veeam is focused on supporting and driving partners' continued success.

Marathon Technologies announced that it has been named as a finalist for the Fifth Annual Massachusetts Innovation & Technology Exchange (MITX) Technology Awards. Marathon was awarded the distinction for developing everRun VM, the fault-tolerant, high availability software for server virtualization. everRun VM addresses one of the major factors that has limited the broader adoption of server virtualization -- a lack of simple and effective high availability technology for virtual environments.

Like many mid-sized enterprises, the Isenberg School of Management at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst was interested in consolidating servers to streamline operations, improve its storage architecture, reduce downtime and conserve resources. The school's outdated storage network, used primarily for operations (shared storage, faculty files documents, multimedia, etc.) along with student information and documents, was plagued with frequent service disruptions. This downtime was wreaking havoc with the network's user base - 145 full-time faculty and staff, plus 120 computer lab desktops that serve students.

Unison has launched a VMware appliance version of its Linux-based unified communications software, Unison. The Unison Virtual Appliance means that companies can deploy a complete unified communications solution in minutes. The virtual appliance includes a preconfigured Linux server with Unison Server already installed. This allows IT professionals to try the Unison beta with no cost and minimal setup time, by simply downloading and playing the virtual machine.

Virage Logic announced the selection of its Intelli Double Data Rate (DDR) Memory Controller interface solution by 3Leaf Systems, a provider of next-generation server virtualization solutions for enterprise data centers, to deliver a silicon proven, high-performance DDR memory controller IP solution. By providing an all digital memory controller solution, and achieving maximum data throughput efficiency, Virage Logic's Intelli DDR solution allowed 3Leaf Systems to reach performance levels only achieved by mainframes. Virage Logic's ability to deliver 800Mbps with low latency and high-efficiency made the Intelli DDR solution a clear choice for the right combination of high-performance, low-power, and low-cost.

Apple picked up PA Semi, the low-power PowerPC start-up, last week to do who knows what with, and Sun picked up the assets of Montalvo Systems, the laconic, heading-for-the-crapper start-up that was supposed to be doing an Intel-competitive low-power/mobile four-core x86 chip for reasons it hasn't shared yet. It apparently plans to integrate the Montalvo technology into its own processors to what effect remains to be seen. Popular wisdom thinks Sun's interest has nothing to do with x86 compatibility.

In 2006 IDC released a study showing that the costs associated with data center management escalate at an alarming rate - in large part because of rising software management expenses. Virtualization has many definitions and uses in today's computing world, but three instances of virtualization are of key importance to solving the problems remaining in the data center after the implementation of state-based management and automation.

Intel and Cray, which when last seen was exclusively an AMD house and a feather in AMD's cap, are now going to work together on HPC and Cray's going to use the multi-core Xeon and fancy interconnect developments in future Cray servers, apparently starting in the so-called Cascade timeframe, say, 2010-2012. They're talking about tackling 'fundamental and historical problems of science and industry' and they plan to develop a range of HPC systems and technologies over the next few years.

This man, whose name is Keith Ward, should be fired from his job for basic incompetence as the editor of a magazine, and here's why. He posts a blog entry on May 6, 2008, in which he writes: 'Virtualization Journal, coming in second, declares itself the winner,' and he continues 'I have no problem with competition. I think it's good for Microsoft, VMware, Cisco and AT&T. It's just as good, and healthy, for IT publications. I do have a problem, however, with publications that either a) Outright lie, or b) Are woefully ignorant, and don't check facts before they publish something.' What are you Keith, are you on drugs?

Now that Microsoft has made it clear that the hypervisor market is to be commoditized with the dawn of a sub $30 price point and the rumor Dell will be absorbing the cost of VMware 3I when distributing select hardware it seems clear that management is the battlefield. Open Virtual Machine Format (OVF), formally known as the Open Virtualization Model, will further facilitate commoditization and the need for cross hypervisor solutions.

Enterprises of all sizes are building flexible storage infrastructures using Internet SCSI (iSCSI) and advanced virtualization technologies that let them allocate and shift SAN resources dynamically in response to the demands of their virtualized server environments.

I/O performance is of great importance to a hypervisor. I/O is also a huge maintenance burden, due to the large number of hardware devices that need to be supported, numerous I/O protocols, high availability options, and management for it all. VMware opted for the performance option, but putting the I/O stack in the hypervisor. Xen took the maintainability route.

Compellent announced that two of its financial services customers, Ares Management and Credit Union of Colorado, have reduced the physical and carbon footprint of their data centers, lowering the overall cost of ownership of their technology infrastructure. The efficient Compellent SAN has enabled both companies to measurably decrease hardware expenditures and the associated energy consumption.

Fortinet announced that Belgacom has selected Fortinet's consolidated network security solutions as the cornerstone of its 'Integrated Security Services,' part of 'Belgacom Explore.' Fortinet's FortiGate-5000 carrier-class systems along with FortiManager and FortiAnalyzer, two sophisticated management, logging and reporting tools, as well as Fortinet's FortiGuard Subscription Services will fuel Belgacom's launched managed security service.

The Embedded Microprocessor Benchmark Consortium (EEMBC) announced that Open Kernel Labs (OK Labs), a supplier of secure embedded systems software and virtualization technology, is the newest member of the consortium's Hypervisor Subcommittee.

AMD announced that its Operating System Research Center (OSRC) has expanded its focus to include optimization and tuning advancements for Sun Microsystems' OpenSolaris Operating System and Sun xVM Virtualization family of products. This extends AMD's commitment to work together with technology software partners to ensure that their OS and virtualization software layers are optimized to leverage AMD processor-based platforms' features. By expanding research and development on the OpenSolaris Operating System, the ORSC expects to help drive increased Solaris OS performance for business customers as well as feature enhancements on AMD Opteron processor-based systems.

NetApp announced that the Breckenridge Group (BGI) created a more efficient and effective storage environment with the recent implementation of the StoreVault S500 storage solution. BGI is a management firm specializing in the development, operations, and ongoing support of various restaurant and hotel locations throughout the western United States. BGI's IT environment consisted of 150 workstations and 250 PC-based point of sales (POS) terminals in the field along with 80 workstations, 14 physical servers, and 16 virtual servers that were located in the company's main office. With more than 4TB of direct-attached storage (DAS), the tasks of archiving, accessing, and backing up data were cumbersome.

MokaFive expanded its management team with new executive appointments. John Whaley, a co-founder of the company, has been promoted to Chief Technology Officer while former Cisco/IronPort executive, Ravi Khatod, joins the company as Vice President of Sales. In addition, MokaFive rounded out its advisory board with the addition of Dale Fuller, a seasoned technology veteran with a strong background in operations and information security.

Fortisphere announced the Fortisphere Partner Program. Created for the company's resellers, system integrators and OEM partners, the Fortisphere Partner Program will provide customers with a comprehensive ecosystem of solution partners focused on delivering best-in-class, policy-based management solutions for virtual environments.

Transitive announced its sponsorship of Digital60 Day, an event hosted by the University of Manchester in the UK to mark the 60th anniversary of the successful running of a program on a digital computer. As with the first digital computer (nicknamed the 'Baby' by its inventors), the innovative technology behind Transitive's successful cross-platform virtualization solutions was pioneered at the University of Manchester. Transitive was founded in 2000 as a spin-off from the university, to commercialize the results of a promising research project. Transitive's development team is based in Manchester, and includes many graduates from the university's School of Computer Science.

Ermestel and Scalent Systems announced an agreement where Ermestel will integrate Scalent Virtual Operating Environment (V/OE) software into the IT environments of its customers. This partnership enables Ermestel to broaden its technology solution portfolio and confirm its position as one of Spain's top integration companies specializing in the virtualization of data centers. The future of managing IT systems is in virtualization technologies -- and is expanding as a business strategy for Global 2000 companies -- which is a sweet spot for infrastructure virtualization because it enables a more adaptive and dynamic IT infrastructure.

Sun is now offering a new virtualization service that will let ISVs run their Solaris apps in a multi-tenant on-demand environment without having to rewrite any code. The trick is in Solaris' Containers virtualization and its xVM widgetry. The new Solaris On Demand program will provide third-party hosting complements of NaviSite, AT&T USi Communications and NTT Europe Online.

HP Labs says it's found the missing link that would create computers that don't forget, don't need to boot up, consume less power and associate information like the human brain does. It says it's proven the existence of a previously only theorized fourth fundamental circuit element in electrical engineering called a 'memristor,' a combination of 'memory resistor,' that can retain a history of the information it's fed.

Most discussions I've seen around security and virtualization center around subtle threats to the hypervisor layer, and whether its possible to jump from one virtual machine to another. Then there are the circular discussions about whether it's provably more secure to perform AV and intrusion inspection from inside the virtual machine, or have the host perform all the functions.

If patents expert John Duffy, a professor at the George Washington University Law School, is right then the Patent and Trademarks Office unconstitutionally appointed nearly two-thirds of the patent appeals judges currently sitting, and close to half of the trademark appeals judges. And that means that the hundreds of decisions they made over the last eight years - worth billions of dollars - could be null and void - at least in those cases still subject to direct appeal and pending before the Federal Circuit or the Supreme Court, as one derivative argument runs.

Pleading a newly found incompatibility with its Dynamics Retail Management System (RMS), Microsoft Tuesday postponed the web release of both XP Service Pack 3 and Vista Service Pack 1 - even if nobody knows anybody who uses RMS. It's unclear how long the delay will be. It says it's working on a filter that will stop Windows Update from offering either service pack to systems running RMS. Once it does that, the widgetry will be released. It's also working on a RMS fix and advises RMS users not to install either service pack. XP SP3 is only two years late.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is on the horns of dilemma about what to do about Yahoo! since Yahoo! ignored his Saturday deadline to deal or be acquired by force at a lower price. And a meeting of Microsoft's board to debate the issue Wednesday apparently didn't find a way around his problem. His problem is money. He simply doesn't want to pay what Yahoo! wants.

Businesses that virtualize can increase efficiency and reduce costs by eliminating low- performance/low-efficienc y servers. Less well-known, but equally important, is the parallel advantage of streamlining the legacy power and cooling systems that support virtualized environments. This presentation will discuss how new power and cooling technologies and effective data center planning and design are saving additional electrical costs, sometimes even more than the original savings from virtualization. Learn how to help manage the complexities of a virtualized environment by answering the not-so-obvious questions 'Where should I locate my next server?' and 'Where should I migrate my applications to maximize efficiency?'

NGASI announced it has launched NGASI AppServer Manager 8.1, which automates multiple installations and configurations for Application Servers and Applications on a single server machine, across multiple virtual servers, and across multiple physical servers.

SMC Networks announced that its 10Gigabit fiber and copper adapters for 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10GbE) server connections now have the added benefit of offering virtualization acceleration. The 10GbE adapters not only excel at performance, but also thermal management, standards-compliance and affordability: Now the SMC10GPCIe-10BT 10GBASE-T server adapter and the SMC10GPCIe-XFP 10GbE optical server adapter both benefit from a driver set that incorporates virtualization acceleration software that accelerates network traffic in virtualized environments.

Banking institutions in the United States and United Kingdom are using a number of virtualization technologies as a means to help centralize deployment and management of applications, simplify IT infrastructure, and improve overall business continuity of IT systems, reports a new survey released by Microsoft.

Close to three-quarters (71 percent) of U.S. retailers are turning to a broad set of virtualization solutions as a means to save costs, maximize space and generally gain better control of their IT infrastructures, reports a new survey released by Microsoft.

Reflex Security announced an initiative to further develop key visibility and access control functionality in its Reflex VSA (Virtual Security Appliance) Solution. Dubbed 'VISability,' for the ability to enable Virtual Infrastructure Security, the initiative to take the approach that without the ability to visualize both the logical and physical elements of a virtual network, comprehensive security cannot be achieved.

Xsigo Systems and SOFTBANK TELECOM announced that the companies have demonstrated an automated disaster recovery solution that allows VMware virtual machines to be automatically failed over between sites which are over 500 KM apart. Built on a Wide Area Virtualization Infrastructure, the solution accelerates system recovery times, reduces the need for manual intervention, and minimizes business loss due to system downtime.