VMware Acquisition of Bitnami Bolsters Multi-Cloud Tools

VMware intends to acquire Bitnami, an application packaging company that allows users to deploy validated business applications in every major cloud. The buy will extend VMWare's multi-cloud reach. Investors are reacting favorably to the potential upside: the Bitnami acquisition news has pushed VMWare shares up 2.11% to $205.52 as of Thursday afternoon.

Developing and deploying applications in a multi-cloud environment often requires a lot of extra work for enterprise developers. Application packages equip developers with the latest versions of production-ready and secure application packages that can be deployed to any cloud.

VMware said that its acquisition of Bitnami will help it solve enterprise IT challenges related to consistent availability of application packages across teams and clouds. It will enable enterprise IT to provide a customized catalog that meets security best practices and is multi-cloud validated, so they can focus on building differentiated capabilities instead of worrying about deployment and infrastructure.

The VMware acquisition also gives the company more inroads to container and open source development. Using Bitnami, developers can deploy and manage applications on their Kubernetes cluster from the Kubeapps dashboard. With the Bitnami Enterprise Catalog, developers can access a collection of open source applications and components that are continuously maintained and updated.

The acquisition follows VMware’s purchase of Heptio which offers a line of popular open source products designed to bring ease-of-use to Kubernetes.

“As part of the fundraising process, we were approached by several vendors in the space to make strategic investments or, in some cases, join forces,” Bitnami said in a blog post:  

“While this was not our original goal, as part of the conversations that we had during this process, we realized that VMware would be the ideal partner for us. We both believe in a Kubernetes and multi-cloud future. We both share large enterprise customers, including cloud service providers. We both are building products and services to help companies navigate this multi-platform, multi-vendor world with a focus on enterprises. VMware already has more than 500,000 customers globally.

“Joining forces with VMware means that we will be able to both double-down on the breadth and depth of our current offering and bring Bitnami to even more clouds as well as accelerating our push into the enterprise.”

VMware customers will be able to deploy application packages on any cloud in the most optimal format, whether that is virtual machine, containers or Kubernetes helm charts. Bitnami will deliver a “curated marketplace to VMware customers” that includes applications, development environments and infrastructure software the company said.

VMware said that it plans to continue investing in Bitnami’s suite of products – which include an application catalog, its enterprise catalog, and Stacksmith, which enables application packaging and automated continuous maintenance for multiple clouds.