American chipmaker Broadcom has agreed to buy cloud services software developer VMware for $61 billion, according to a statement on the company's website.
This is one of the largest deals in the history of the technology sector and the largest acquisition of a company by a semiconductor manufacturer, Bloomberg notes. The Broadcom-VMware deal ranks alongside other massive 2022 deals, including Microsoft's $68.7 billion purchase of game publisher Activision Blizzard and Elon Musk's $44 billion buyout of Twitter.
“Building on our track record of successful mergers and acquisitions, this transaction will combine our leading semiconductor and infrastructure software business with a pioneer and innovator in enterprise software,” said Broadcom CEO Hock Tan.
Broadcom makes components from companies ranging from Apple to industrial equipment manufacturers. However, it is developing most actively in the field of providing data centers. Buying a developer will allow the company to further develop in this direction.
Broadcom had previously been in talks to buy SAS Institute Inc., a closed software company valued at $15-20 billion. But those discussions ended without an agreement.
About VMware
VMware was founded in 1998. In 2004, EMC bought the company for $625 million. In 2015, Dell bought it out for $67 billion. In November 2021, VMware completely completed its exit from Dell and became independent again.
The current deal continues a series of acquisitions by the Broadcom CEO that created "one of the largest and most diversified companies in the industry," Bloomberg notes. In 2018, CA Technologies, a manufacturer of enterprise software, in 2019, Symantec Corp, a company specializing in corporate security.
Michael Zippo
2022/05/27
https://linkedin.com/in/michael-zippo-9136441b1
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Sources: Broadcom.com
