Red Hat Acquires Virtualization Company

In what some consider to be a response to Microsofts Hyper-V efforts, Red Hat acquires Qumranet Inc., a virtualization provider. Qumranent produces KVM (Kernel Virtual Machine) and SolidICE (a virtual desktop infrastructure) solutions. The combination will give Red Hat Linux a comprehensive virtualization platform for enterprise customers.

In addition to acquiring the technologies, Red Hat will be picking up the employees who will give support, testing, and continued development to Red Hats virtualization efforts.

The acquisition will give Red Hat Enterprise Linux an embedded hypervisor that will support all major operating systems. Red Hat is also looking into using the software to gain a foothold in the emerging cloud and grid management space.

"Red Hat customers enjoy highly responsive, flexible and cost-effective IT infrastructures," said Jim Whitehurst, President and CEO at Red Hat. "This acquisition furthers our capability to widen the gap between open source and proprietary infrastructure software. Put simply, Qumranet's KVM and VDI technologies are at the forefront of the next generation of virtualization. They represent an opportunity to raise the bar and meet the market's demand for virtualization solutions."

The key component involved with using SolidICE is to allow Red Hat to manage Windows desktops. The software uses Simple Protocol for Independent Computing Environments (SPICE) protocol, allowing it to overcome obstacles in the virtualization space.

Red Hat paid $107 million in cash to acquire Qumranet.

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