Intel IT, Adventures in M&A

The challenges for IT when handling an M&A project can be quite daunting to say the least.  But before we go down those winding, twisting roads, I&aposll start with an overview of the different types of projects we tend to come across related to M&A deals.

M&A refers to mergers and acquisitions.  These are the deals that companies enter into for various business reasons including growing talent quickly, expanding product lines or entering new markets.  For the IT project manager, these types of deals and decisions result in one of several scenarios.

I have yet to be involved in a merger project.  In my mind, a merger is the joining of at least two companies to form a new combined corporate entity.  The original companies would typically be comparable in size and enter into the deal more as partners on somewhat equal footing in terms of control and influence.  Needless to say, the IT challenges of a merger could be enormous.  Again, I haven&apost had the experience of working on such a project, so I&aposll certainly spend more time on the other scenarios.

Acquisitions involve, well, the acquisition of a smaller company by a larger company.  Dare I say it, assimilation?  From an IT perspective, this typically involves figuring out how to bring a smaller company&aposs infrastructure and data into the greater corporate IT environment.  I might add that a key challenge of acquisitions is executing this transition without damaging things like culture, process and work efficiency of the acquired company.

Divestitures are the unnamed scenarios of M&A.  Sometimes we talk about M&A&D, which  makes a nice TLA.    A divestiture typically involves the sale of components of one company to another company.  This is different than an acquisition in that only a piece of a company is being acquired by another.  Although one company&aposs divestiture is in fact another company&aposs acquisition.  Interesting, no?

Finally, I must include another scenario which seems to be quite common these days, the site closure.  Although not exactly an M&A style effort, the site closure is often the ultimate end of an acquisition.  Although I am far from an experienced operator when it comes to M&A, I&aposve been around the block enough to see the pattern…big company acquires smaller company…big company extracts value out of acquisition, or not…a few years pass…acquisition site closes.  Of course, I have also seen acquisition sites become key facilities for ongoing operations.  One interesting twist with site closures is that they can sometimes turn into divestitures.  More on that later.

In a nutshell, these are the four major categories of projects we consider within the IT M&A scope.  I will elaborate more on each scenario in future blog posts.  Stay tuned!

I&aposm curious to know what kinds of M&A projects have impacted IT at your company?

Disclaimer In Plain English:  My efforts are focused on IT systems integration (or the reverse) and I have no involvement with M&A business negotiations or decisions.  I have no knowledge of and cannot comment on or answer questions regarding specific deals, either announced or unannounced.

URL: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/IntelBlogs/~3/v3XSpYwVbeo/intel-it-adventures-in-ma

Neocleus Debuts Client Virtualization Solution Neosphere

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Neocleus last week introduced Neosphere, a desktop and laptop management platform and the first Neocleus product built upon Neocleus’ second generation, Type 1 client hypervisor. Neosphere centrally manages and controls multiple concurrent isolated operating system (OS) instances as virtual machines (VMs), which execute locally on a single laptop or desktop.

Neocleus will demonstrate Neosphere for the first time at the upcoming Citrix Synergy Conference, May 4 – 7 in Las Vegas, NV. The product will begin shipping to customers and partners this May.

The most prominent use cases Neosphere tackles include:

• Side by side execution of two separate and isolated OS instances. One instance could be a 100 % secure locked-down operating environment containing all the corporate applications, data, network connections, and hardware configurations while the other OS could run an open image with applications that have a high intrusion threat such as music sharing software, games and social networking websites.
• Operating two separate corporate images side by side on the same laptop or desktop; ideal for running two environments on separate, secure networks, managing application migration during mergers and acquisitions, and multi-project initiatives or environments with outsourced workers.
• Running two versions of Microsoft Windows natively on the same machine to allow those legacy applications that have not yet been updated to Windows Vista or the upcoming Windows 7 to still be used while end users also leverage the benefits of the later operating environment in a separate VM.
• Creating new efficiencies in desktop and laptop management by delivering a single “gold” image to a variety of different hardware platforms, thus dramatically reducing the amount of time necessary to prepare and test the corporate OS environment prior to delivering it to end users.
• Controlling hardware components without ever touching the laptop or desktop by centrally virtualizing the hardware components of the desktop and laptop and allowing IT administrators to turn various hardware components of the endpoint device on and off on a per-VM basis.

Neosphere leverages the company’s second generation Type 1 client hypervisor to address these challenges. The product allows two fully functional virtual machines, or “spheres” to run simultaneously and natively on a single desktop or laptop. Each sphere is centrally controlled by IT policies and requires no incremental hardware in the data center. Spheres are distributed to PCs where they execute locally in 100% secure isolated VMs. Users seamlessly move between environments without any degradation in performance. The spheres have full access to the power of the underlying hardware, including native access to the RAM, CPU, hard disks, network cards, USB devices, touch screens, and other devices attached to the local desktop or laptop. Neosphere offers the broadest hardware support of any client-side virtualization product in the industry with future plans to support the Apple iMac and MacBook platforms.

The Neosphere product is designed to work in conjunction with existing systems and tools familiar to desktop administrators. There is tight integration with applications such as Microsoft Active Directory and SQL Server. The system is designed to work in conjunction with all OS patching and updating products as well including existing change and configuration management systems such as Microsoft SCCM, Symantec Altiris Client Management Suite, Tivoli, HP Radia, BigFix, Novell ZENworks, and others. In addition, Neosphere works in conjunction with existing application virtualization solutions such as Microsoft App-V, VMware ThinApp, and InstallFree.

URL: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Virtualizationdotcom/~3/SU4qPoj1qoM/

What vendors will need to examine as they look to shed assets

Companies spent trillions on software and Internet mergers and acquisitions in the post-bubble boom. Some of those acquisitions have fueled growth, geographical expansion and innovation. However, many have fallen short of expectations, taken companies outside of their core focus, or drained resources from more promising lines of business. These assets should be sold, but this is easier said than done.

URL: http://www.networkworld.com/news/2009/031109-divestitures.html