VMWare has confirmed its acquisition of Yahoo’s open source Zimbra email and communications platform, which has been for sale since late September.
Financial details of the transaction have not been released, but most market estimates put the purchase at a fraction of the $350 million (€241m) that Yahoo paid for Zimbra two years ago. The deal represents the first sale under CEO Carol Bartz’s watch.
Zimbra claims to serve over 55 million mailboxes, up 86% over the last year. Under Yahoo’s ownership it has incorporated some of Zimbra’s technology into products such as Yahoo Mail and under the deal will continue to use Zimbra technology in its communications services.
VMware said the acquisition would help in its cloud computing mission of reducing complexity and delivering a more efficient and approach to IT.
“Over the coming years, we expect more organizations, especially small and medium size businesses, to increasingly buy core IT solutions that deliver cloud-like simplicity in end-user and operational experience,” said VMware VP and GM cloud services, Brian Byun.
He said Zimbra was a great example of the type of scalable cloud solutions that can span smaller, on-premise implementations to the cloud.
“It will be a building block in an expanding portfolio of solutions that can be offered as a virtual appliance or by a cloud service provider.”