[German]Another short news from the Broadcom VMware cosmos that reached me at the end of February 2024. According to an announcement, the private equity company KKR will take over the end customer business including the VMware product portfolio. The purchase price is quoted at 4 billion US dollars.
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Since Broadcom bought the virtualization provider VMware (see Broadcom acquires VMware for 61 billion US-$), no stone has been left unturned. The product portfolio is being streamlined and customers are being forced into cloud subscriptions (see Broadcom beerdigt VMware-Produkte mit Perpetual-Lizenzen – Ende des kostenlosen ESXi-Servers?) I had reported extensively here in the blog – see also the other links at the end of the article.
In the blog post BBroadcom plans to sell VMware end-user computing and carbon black businesses, I mentioned that Broadcom had announced the sale of VMware's end-user division and Carbon Black. The private equity firm KKR now seems to have won the bid, according to the above tweet and this article.
The private equity firm KKR officially announced on Monday, February 29, 2024, that it intends to purchase VMware's End User Computing (EUC) division in a deal worth 4 billion dollars. At VMware, EUC includes services such as remote access, virtual desktop and mobile device management. Rumors about the takeover have been circulating in the IT industry for days – I had also heard them.
KKR has also bought the Allu Group with Corel, Mindmanager etc. as well as Parallels. Of interest here is the Parallels Remote Application Server, which enables remote access technologies. "Workspace ONE and Horizon are best-in-class platforms chosen by many of the world's leading organizations to create seamless and secure digital workspaces with interoperability across increasingly complicated technology stacks," said Bradley Brown, Managing Director at KKR, in a statement. "We see great potential to grow the EUC division by nurturing this talented team and investing in product innovation, customer excellence and building strategic partnerships."
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The USD 4 billion is only peanuts in view of the VMware purchase price of USD 61 billion paid by Broadcom. KKR says it will use cash from its North America Fund XIII to finance the transaction. This transaction is expected to close in 2024, subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory approvals.
"The paralysis that has gripped VMware's EUC business is over," said Jed Ayres, CEO of ControlUp, a leading provider of digital employee experience software. "KKR will provide innovation, investment, leadership, vision and stability. KKR will be a stabilizing force for this business. This is a great thing for the VDI industry."
With KKR's commitment to provide an "expanded dedicated sales team" and additional "resources" for partner support, the deal could mark a return to VMware's once strong EUC partner program, Ayres is quoted as saying. "This could be a defining moment for VMware partners," he said. "It's also great for the entire EUC community. There have been a lot of layoffs and this could put hundreds of people back to work." We'll have to wait and see what happens there. The question for me is what will happen with VMware Workstation and VMware Fusion. They don't seem to be included in the sale.
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