Comments on: Oracle quickly and quietly kills Virtual Iron

Oracle's acquisition of Virtual Iron has been reduced to a code base. There's plenty more of these quick shutdowns to come.

[ericyen]

The flip side of the coin . . . Oracle forcing consolidation of a market that is over saturated. How many virtualization companies do you really need . . . 3 good ones not hundreds of small ones. This is IT darwinism . . .

[kirkules]

I wonder if this is how we get too big to fail?

[nazzdeq]

Exactly, which means you need nothing from Oracle since their technology is based on Xen. Just use open source Xen. Better yet, just use Citrix XenServer which is now free.

[Random_Walk]

If Oracle fails, err, so what? You can migrate your DBs to MySQL, MS SQL Server (if you're both a DBA and a hardcore masochist), PostgreSQL, and the like.

[Random_Walk]

Gotta agree with ericyen a bit... I mean, seriously, most folks don't see it, but there is certainly a lot of detritus from the virtualization boom floating around. Not much different from the search engine boom a long (really long) time back, the OS GUI boom way the heck long before that (anyone else still use GEM?) and the 'cloud' boom (if there ever is one) will end up the same way.

I'm seeing it in my employer's industry (green/renewable energy) right now: Lots of start-up players who got into it last year for a piece of the industry's pie are now finding themselves either being bought up or going belly-up.

Rough seas are harder on the smaller boats than they are on the larger ones. Not that it's right or just, but it simply is.

[monkeyfun14]

To be honest i'm surprised you guys are okay with this.

I mean isn't this not the same type of thing Microsoft did in the 90's? That you still ***** about today?

[Random_Walk]

You're missing the point entirely.

You confuse a rapacious monopolist's actions in the 1990s with the actions of a virtual (s'cuse the pun) non-competitor wanting to get hold of some useful tech that would otherwise become orphanware once its parent died off.

(Now if VMWare had bought the company and then disposed of it, you might have had a point. But they didn't, so you don't. )

[Vegaman_Dan]

@monkeyfun14:

It's not about Microsoft, therefore it's okay to have this happen. It's only when Microsoft is involved in some manner that they complain about it. Random_Walk's comments demonstrate this hypocrisy perfectly.

But in the end, I have to agree with Random_Walk on this one. There was simply too much out there that conflicted with each other, caused too much confusion, and generally muddied the waters of what was and what wasn't supported in the long haul.

[Random_Walk]

@Dan:

One day, you might elevate above the help desk... but not if you continue your slavish devotion to any one vendor.

Here's a challenge for you: Please demonstrate for us Oracle's marketshare in the VM industry (hint: practically nil - their one product was a Xen clone right down to the code FFS). Then, show us Microsoft's marketshare of its industries (OS, browser, et al) compared to its competitors in the 1990s.

C'mon - let's see you either lie your butt off, try and weasel out of it, or embarrass yourself once the realization dawns on you. I don't mind either way.

I don't see how this FALSELY spreads the idea that buying from a smaller company is more risky than buying from a big company. It TRUTHFULLY spreads that idea, as in this case the large company bought the smaller company and did away with everything except the codebase.

I think what the author means to suggest is that it this idea is self-perpetuating and damaging, but that doesn't make it false. It is demonstrably true. The answer to such problems is regulation. Before that would have been a dirty, dirty word. Now it's merely a dirty one.

[Random_Walk]

I agree with you right up to the "regulation" part.

Virtual Iron was a willing sale. That is, VI sold itself willingly to Oracle. See also zvonr's take on it below.

Therefore, there's really nothing to regulate here.

[zvonr]

I you are a healthy company 99% of the time you are not shopping yourself arround...

[GMooreSRG]

The real sad part is when a good technology is killed off by market forces. Even sadder is the debt that was racked up in the process leading to this. This further proves the point that you should be careful what you invest in and be sure you have a backup plan should the company go under.

Dave neglected a key bit of information reported by the Register:
"According to The Times, the company had just $3.4 million in revenue last year, after spending $17.7 million on sales, marketing, research, development, and administrative costs."

Competition is important. So is liquidity. If you run your company and it's technology into the ground, you've done your entire customer base no good. I'm glad we never invested in Virtual Iron, only because this happened.

As far as I'm concerned, paid VMWare is overpriced (ESXi doesn't count) and Hyper V is half-baked.

What's left?