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VMware Acquires Socialcast, Leaping Fully into the Collaboration Market
| Jun 2, 2011 | Collaboration Platforms
| Analyst: Brad Shimmin
Event Summary
May 31, 2011 - VMware announced the acquisition of Socialcast, a provider of social collaboration solutions for the enterprise. Socialcast enables modern business communication by uniting people, information and enterprise applications within collaborative communities. Delivered as a hosted service, private cloud implementation, or via an on-premise solution, Socialcast is used by some of the world's largest enterprises including Avaya, Humana, Nokia, Philips Electronics, SAS and VMware. Terms of the acquisition were not announced.
Quick Take
Analytical Summary
• Current Perspective: Very positive on VMware's acquisition of enterprise collaboration platform vendor Socialcast, because this move greatly expands VMware's range of opportunities within the collaboration platform marketplace. The acquisition will initially benefit VMware's still fledgling collaboration portfolio (made up of VMware Zimbra and the recently acquired SlideRocket), enabling social networking within the context of e-mail/calendaring across popular desktops and devices, for example. Such functionality will eventually cross over into the vendor's data center solutions such as the company's new Horizon App Manager, bolstering the vendor's vision of a post-PC era where IT becomes a center of strategic value.
• Vendor Importance: Very high to VMware, because prior to this acquisition, the company's collaboration portfolio was severely limited in scope compared with software available from virtually all rivals within the collaboration platform marketplace. While the company aspired to a broader collaborative agenda with VMware Zimbra, for example, the product lacked the ability to support key capabilities such as social networking, rich profiles and team building. Socialcast brings with it these capabilities and more, allowing VMware to field a product set capable of fulfilling most enterprise collaboration needs.
• Market Impact: Very high on the collaboration platform market in general, because the acquisition creates a new rival within a very elite collection of collaboration players capable of fielding both e-mail/calendaring and collaboration solutions, namely IBM, Oracle, Novell/Attachmate, Google and Microsoft. Additionally, VMware can now better compete with rival e-mail/calendaring vendors and begin competing with pure-play solutions from rivals such as Jive, Telligent and Socialtext. And with the addition of not just technology but also expertise surrounding key areas such as social analytics, the vendor can begin to deliver business value outside the boundaries of traditional IT - a landscape known all too well by VMware's new competitive set.
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VMware Acquires Enterprise Social Collaboration Provider Socialcast
Socialcast Joins Growing VMware End-User Computing Portfolio, Delivering a More Efficient Way to Communicate, Share Information and Conduct Business in the Cloud Era
PALO ALTO, CA--(Marketwire - May 31, 2011) - VMware, Inc. (NYSE: VMW), the global leader in virtualization and cloud infrastructure, today announced the acquisition of Socialcast, a leading provider of social collaboration solutions for the enterprise. Socialcast enables modern business communication by uniting people, information and enterprise applications within collaborative communities. Delivered as a hosted service, private cloud implementation, or via an on-premise solution, Socialcast is used by some of the world's largest enterprises including Avaya, Humana, Nokia, Philips Electronics, SAS and VMware. Terms of the acquisition were not announced.
Socialcast joins the recent acquisitions of SlideRocket™ and Zimbra™, along with the introduction of VMware Horizon App Manager™, in helping advance VMware's vision for a modern end-user computing model. VMware's vision is to transform the traditional PC desktop by equipping today's mobile workforce with secure access to applications and data from any location and any device, while driving increased productivity through modern collaboration and communication models.
These new collaboration models promise to better support modern work streams, that are increasingly more iterative and interconnected, as information is assembled and coordinated among virtual teams that cut across organizations.
"The post-PC era will be defined by a new way to work that is increasingly social, real-time and collaborative," said Brian Byun, vice president and general manager, Cloud Applications, VMware. "For enterprise collaboration to improve business outcomes it can't just be a feature in a single application. Organizations need a new social collaboration fabric across the applications people already work with. Socialcast combines real-time activity streams that are contextually integrated within existing enterprise systems. This is the new way to work."
"The future of work will be focused on people-centric collaboration, bringing diverse groups of employees together to accelerate business performance," said Timothy Young, founder and CEO, Socialcast. "We've seen Socialcast transform the way that people work at some of the world's largest companies, and we're excited to bring the benefits of social computing to VMware's more than 250,000 customers."
A New Way to Work in the Cloud
More than ever, enterprises are dealing with two fundamental client computing pain points -- providing secure access to an increasingly mobile workforce; and managing the burgeoning diversity of data, applications and devices needed to run their business. These challenges result from the transformative nature of cloud computing and the coming post-PC era.
In this environment, a new way to work will be required. The growing VMware End-User Computing portfolio seeks to free end users and IT organizations from more than two decades of complex, device-centric computing and deliver a more user-centric, consumer cloud experience for the enterprise. This approach to personal computing will enable organizations to leverage public cloud resources while extending existing security models and providing access to applications and data from any device, where and when a user needs it.
Establishing a new end-user computing model is a fundamental component of the VMware vision for IT as a Service -- the transformation of IT to a more business-centric approach, focusing on outcomes such as operational efficiency, self service, competitiveness and rapid response. This means IT will shift from producing IT services to optimizing production and consumption of those services in ways consistent with business requirements. This will change the role of IT from a cost center to a center of strategic value.
Additional Resources
Read more about the addition of Socialcast to the growing VMware End-User Computing portfolio from Steve Herrod, CTO, VMware
Read more about Socialcast joining VMware from Timothy Young, founder and CEO, Socialcast
About Socialcast
Socialcast is a leading provider of enterprise collaboration platforms that unite people, data and applications in real-time. Behind the firewall or in the cloud, Socialcast's software enables instant collaboration in a secure environment. Customers deploy Socialcast to create a social layer across business systems and employee communication channels for faster information-sharing, knowledge transfer across geography, employee engagement, and task management. Socialcast is headquartered in San Francisco, Calif. For more information, please visit www.socialcast.com.
About VMware
VMware delivers virtualization and cloud infrastructure solutions that enable IT organizations to energize businesses of all sizes. With the industry leading virtualization platform -- VMware vSphere® -- customers rely on VMware to reduce capital and operating expenses, improve agility, ensure business continuity, strengthen security and go green. With 2010 revenues of $2.9 billion, more than 250,000 customers and 25,000 partners, VMware is the leader in virtualization which consistently ranks as a top priority among CIOs. VMware is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the world and can be found online at www.vmware.com.
VMware, VMware Horizon App Manager, VMware vSphere, Zimbra and SlideRocket are registered trademarks and/or trademarks of VMware, Inc. in the United States and/or other jurisdictions. All other marks and names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective companies.
Source: VMware
