VMWare stock prices have soared on Tuesday, which showed that the virtual machine started to get real cash.
VMWare is the pioneer of virtual technology, this technology allows a computer several roles, and can make a Mac to install Windows and Mac operating systems, or large server running Windows 和 Linux. As companies want to make better use of the value of the server, which has a small minority of the technology has been rapidly developing.
VMWare virtually become synonymous with virtualization technology.
Senior industry experts, "advanced server virtualization," David Marshall, author of the book, said: "VMWare's name like Xerox is to the copier or 克里内克丝 (Note: American tissues TM) of the tissues."
Tuesday, investors in the company's prowess in this family made a return, they will be pushed once VMWare shares to 55.50 U.S. dollars a share, to close at 51 dollars per share, while VMWare listed on the first day Monday, the price of 29 dollars.
Marshall said: "This is not only an affirmation of VMWare performance, but also to the entire virtual machine industry recognition."
Although VMWare is the industry leader in virtual machine, but it is from a single large company yet.
Open source and commercial software manufacturers offer similar software and VMWare, and their products at lower prices.
Marshall said: "Virtual Iron and XenSource are all set up their own brand." Prices of these competitors are only a VMWare product price for 1 / 5.
Sharks are also betting on virtualization technology. Microsoft several years ago into this area in 2003, bought Connectix. Recently, Microsoft announced a new virtual machine, hypervisor, hypervisor will be built on Windows Server among them. Windows Server 2008 will appear in the technology, product code-named Viridian.
Microsoft virtual machine market is facing some challenges. Microsoft recently Viridian remove some features, like a real-time transfer function.
But Microsoft insists that the virtual machine market is still in its infancy.
Microsoft System Center and Virtualization Business Unit General Manager Larry Orecklin said: "Now, less than 5% of the server installed the virtual machine software, we believe this is still a nascent market, it has many potential for development." Microsoft hope, by the virtual machine built into its server operating system and the existing management tools product line approach, Microsoft will give users more wonderful choice.
But users can not wait for Microsoft. Marshall said that about a quarter of the new servers with virtualization capabilities.
While virtualization market is only a small market, but it has shocked the technology industry. Virtual manufacturing technology has changed the way server, such as chip maker Intel in their chips which provides support for virtualization. It also changed the software developers of the product pricing.
Illuminata Inc. analyst Gordon Haff said: "I really believe that server virtualization will be the face and people buy the software configuration of an impact. I think that the current development of the virtual machine did not reflect its future potential."
He believes that business is no longer clear how much they can focus on the raw computing capability.
Haff said: "The situation now is that we already have a lot of hardware computing power, but we in the management and use of these hardware limitations, we really wish to be more efficient
Use these machines. "
Virtualization software industry trend has caused some turmoil, the industry had been accustomed to the server or the number of processors on the server for software pricing. Haff说，为了应对虚拟机的趋势，软件商已经提出一些临时性的定价措施，但他认为，将来，软件定价将越来越适应于虚拟机的潮流。
Haff说：“我预计，我们将看到更多的软件按照每位员工或者每次使用等方式来收取使用费。”
EMC是直接受益于虚拟化趋势的一家公司，2004年，EMC对VMWare投资6亿美元，而本周，EMC仅仅出售了在VMWare公司占有的其中10%股份，便轻松赚取了9亿美元。VMWare的总体市值目前已经达到100亿美元。
Haff说：“EMC真的捡到一个便宜货，尽管当时投资时，人们认为那是一笔大钱。”
“汤姆森金融公司”的资本市场研究主管Richard Peterson说，虚拟技术公司并不是现在唯一一种希望在华尔街赚取现金奶牛的技术种类公司，目前，大约有1百家相关公司已经提供了上市请求，预计今年就会上市。
其中一家公司尤其引人注目，这就是NetSuite按需软件公司，这家公司得到了甲骨文老总拉里艾里森的支持。NetSuite希望通过IPO（首次公开上市）募集到7500万美元。计算机显示器制造商ViewSonic也在等待上市的公司行列，这家公司希望募集到1.438亿美元。
但这些技术公司可能很难获得投资者对待VMWare这样的青睐。这主要是由于虚拟化已经被广泛认为是企业数据中心的未来。
Marshall说：“我认为虚拟化不是昙花一现。”
Marshall目前在InovaWave公司负责商业开发以及市场营销公司，这家私人持股公司已经拥有一种能够加快虚拟机运行，允许一台服务器运行
更多虚拟机的软件。
Marshall认为，虚拟化对那些现在看上去仍然弱小的公司敞开了机遇之门。但这并不意味着微软等巨头公司就可以轻而易举的击败VMWare等企业。
Marshall说：“VMWare上市拿到了10亿美元，其中一些钱将用于收购新技术，雇用工程师。”