In a move that further solidifies its investment in virtualization and cloud computing, Cisco Systems announced an $11 million investment in Parallels through Almaz Capital Partners. The investment is noteworthy for several reasons:
- In 2007, Cisco purchased $150 million of VMware Class A common shares. Parallels is the second virtualization company to receive an investment from Cisco.
- Through its investment, Almaz Capital Partners acquired a 5% stake from its previous owners, Insight Venture Partners.
- Unlike VMware which is owned by EMC, Parallels may be a more viable acquisition for Cisco down the road, especially if the networking giant decides to make virtualization a core part of its Cisco Unified Computing System.
- Parallels is about to launch its bare-metal hypervisor with integrated management and automation.
Could Cisco be working with Parallels to incorporate virtualization, management and automation capabilities into the Cisco Unified Computing System? Is $11 million only the beginning of Cisco's investment in Parallels as it plans to invest $100 million in growth stage Russian software and IT companies over the next year?
