» VIEW ALL POSTS Apr 4 2011   10:12PM GMT

VMware acquires Mozy from EMC

Posted by: Colin Steele
cloud computing, Colin Steele, EMC, Mozy, VMware

VMware acquired Mozy, the hosted backup service, from its parent company EMC today.

At first glance, VMware’s Mozy acquisition seems like another one of its cloud pick-ups — see: SpringSource, Zimbra, etc. — that won’t do much for virtualization customers. But Mozy may bring some new capabilities to VMware’s core business after all. From VMware CTO Stephen Herrod’s announcement:

I’m also excited about some of the core data-handling technologies developed by the Mozy team. The Mozy future roadmap is going to excite consumers and businesses alike, and we also see the opportunity to leverage Mozy’s data compression, synchronization, client integration, and analytic tools to extend several existing and not-yet-announced VMware products.

On the cloud computing side, the Mozy acquisition will do a lot for VMware, if for nothing other than Mozy’s infrastructure; the service’s data centers store more than 70 petabytes, or 70 million gigabytes. And although Mozy is a popular consumer service, it does boast 70,000 business customers.

Because EMC owns VMware, you might think this move doesn’t make a ton of sense. The companies work very closely together these days, you might ask, so why does it matter who owns what? But they are clearly trying to position VMware as the cloud infrastructure and management company. Last year’s Ionix acquisition showed it, and this Mozy acquisition only reinforces this strategy.