VMWare Gets a $218 Million Investment From Intel

EMC just received a $218 million investment into VMware from Intel (which is about 2.5% stock ownership) just before VMWare prepared to announce plans for its IPO.

With its new investment in VMware, Intel extends its longtime relationship with the EMC unit. In an announcement, Intel and VMware said: “VMware’s base virtualization platform virtualizes the Intel architecture. Intel microprocessors comprise the majority of the systems on which VMware’s virtualization products are deployed.”

Virtualization is the next frontier of computing, and this investment shows how Intel is very interested in advancing this technology.

In related news and filed under “If you can’t beat them, join them”, AMD has invested in Transmeta to hopefully ward off Intel.

On Friday, computer chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices announced it had invested $7.5 million in Transmeta, which develops and licenses computing, microprocessor and semiconductor technologies and related intellectual property.

I guess if you can’t beat them, join them.