VMware has acquired desktop-as-a-service (DaaS) firm Desktone for an undisclosed fee.
The acquisition was announced today in Barcelona at VMworld Europe 2013, as part of the opening keynote.
Desktone, which is an existing partner of VMware's, offers a multi-tenant desktop virtualisation platform for delivering Windows desktops and applications as a cloud service.
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"VMware is acquiring Desktone, it has been a company like us - a pioneer. They have very efficiently built a multi-tenant platform which enables service providers to deliver DaaS," said Sanjay Poonen, executive vice president and general manager of end user computing at VMware.
VMware said that the firm offers several unique capabilities including self-service of virtual desktops, an architecture that allows for "unlimited" scalability across several geographies and datacentres, and as it is based on open source technology, VMware said it eliminates Microsoft licensing fees and third-party software management, which in turn, saves customers costs.
In a press Q&A, Poonen added that it was VMware's first major acquisition in six months.
"They have really figured out how to make DaaS, and as we think about virtualisation of desktops, there is nothing better out there; they've built it on top of our infrastructure and we felt it made sense to bring into the network now," he said.
"It's great to be doing this with our partners like Cisco, Netapp, Dell and many others like Fujitsu [using the platform themselves]," he continued.
Desktone is headquartered in Boston, MA and was founded in 2007. It's funded by Highland Capital and Softbank, and other service providers which use the platform include NEC and Time Warner.
