VMware signs definitive agreement to acquire Pivotal Software and Carbon Black

Yesterday, VMware announced in a press release that they entered a conclusive agreement to acquire Carbon Black, a cloud-native endpoint security software developer. According to the agreement, “VMware will acquire Carbon Black in an all cash transaction for $26 per share, representing an enterprise value of $2.1 billion.”

VMware intends to use Carbon Black’s big data and behavioral analytics to offer customers advanced threat detection and behavioral insight to defend against experienced attacks. Consequently, they aspire to protect clients through big data, behavioral analytics, and AI.

Pat Gelsinger, the CEO of VMware says, “By bringing Carbon Black into the VMware family, we are now taking a huge step forward in security and delivering an enterprise-grade platform to administer and protect workloads, applications, and networks.” He adds, “With this acquisition, we will also take a significant leadership position in security for the new age of modern applications delivered from any cloud to any device.”

Yesterday, after much speculation, VMware also announced that they have acquired Pivotal Software, a cloud-native platform provider, for an enterprise value of $2.7 billion. Dell technologies is a major stakeholder in both companies.

Lately, VMware has been heavily investing in Kubernetes. Last year, it also launched a VMware Kubernetes Engine (VKE) to offer Kubernetes-as-a-Service. This year, Pivotal also teamed up with the Heroku team to create Cloud Native Buildpacks for Kubernetes and recently, also launched a Pivotal Spring Runtime for Kubernetes. With Pivotal, VMware plans to “deliver a comprehensive portfolio of products, tools and services necessary to build, run and manage modern applications on Kubernetes infrastructure with velocity and efficiency.”

Read More: VMware’s plan to acquire Pivotal Software reflects a rise in Pivotal’s shares

Gelsinger told ZDNet that both these “acquisitions address two critical technology priorities of all businesses today — building modern, enterprise-grade applications and protecting enterprise workloads and clients.” Gelsinger also pointed out that multi-cloud, digital transformation, and the increasing trend of moving “applications to the cloud and access it over distributed networks and from a diversity of endpoints” are significant reasons for placing high stakes on security.

It is clear that by acquiring Carbon Black and Pivotal Software, the cloud computing and virtualization software company is seeking to expand its range of products and services with an ultimate focus on security in Kubernetes.

A user on Hacker News comments, “I'm not surprised at the Pivotal acquisition. VMware is determined to succeed at Kubernetes. There is already a lot of integration with Pivotal's Kubernetes distribution both at a technical as well as a business level.”

Also, developers around the world are excited to see what the future holds for VMware, Carbon Black, and Pivotal Software.

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Per the press release, both the transaction payments are expected to be concluded in the second half of VMware’s fiscal year i.e., January 31, 2020.

Interested users can read the VMware acquiring Carbon Black and Pivotal Software press releases for more information.