VMware Scoops Up Mobile Vendor Boxer, Adds to AirWatch Unit
October 15, 2015
Article written by David Marshall
This week, if you put the words "VMware" and "acquisition" in the same sentence, the mass majority of us would conclude you were talking about the $67b Dell acquisition of EMC, VMware’s parent company.
But in a small corner of VMworld Europe 2015, those two words are being paired up to talk about the VMware End-User Computing team’s announcement made earlier today that talks about the virtualization giant’s plans to acquire Boxer, Inc., a privately held company that offers a comprehensive and secure personal information management (PIM) solution for mobile devices to businesses and consumers.
At first blush, the acquisition news may give you pause. Boxer is after all a consumer oriented application, with apps being designed for use on iOS and Android devices. And that may bring up memories of the great VMware sell off in 2013 when the company "realigned its strategy" and sold off the likes of Zimbra, Sliderocket and Wavemaker. But this latest move has more to do with security and control, and boosting VMware’s business mobility product line.
The addition of Boxer becomes part of VMware’s strategy around the digital workspace, which according to VMware, offers a single, central location for business users to access any application on any device, built on a mobile-cloud architecture that centralizes core services, simplifies management, and meets both user and business expectations. VMware adds that it provides businesses with the power to deliver innovative business processes and reach customers in new ways; but most importantly, it follows the VMware End-User Computing philosophy of consumer simplicity and enterprise-grade security so the solution can realistically be used in the real world of on-demand, mobile-cloud computing.
While at VMworld Europe, Sanjay Poonen, EVP and GM of VMware End-User Computing, had this to say about the acquisition:
First and foremost, the announcement of our intent to acquire Boxer today is an example of our continued commitment to enterprise mobile management. For business users, the most ubiquitous mission critical application is email, followed by content and business apps that contain the data, insights, and information they need to conduct business and compete. But our model for these applications has remained relatively unchanged for decades. Boxer has developed a next generation personal information management (PIM) solution for enterprises that bridges essential business applications with leading productivity, enterprise and social networking solutions including Box, Dropbox, Evernote, Facebook, Gmail, iCloud, Salesforce, Twitter, Outlook and Yahoo, just to name a few.
The Boxer team will be paired up with and join VMware’s Airwatch unit. Together, they are expected to work towards launching a suite of secure apps for the enterprise.
Noah Wasmer, VMware’s chief technology officer and vice president of product management, mobile products, End-User Computing, explained why his company was "doubling down" with the planned acquisition of Boxer, saying, "Upon closing of the acquisition, the combination of Boxer and AirWatch by VMware will create a world-class suite of services that will enable businesses to provide their employees with secure access to their email, content and apps."
Wasmer went on to say, "What if this suite could be well integrated into an ecosystem of apps through a standard like ACE? Imagine, your apps and your data – seamlessly working together with one unified identity and NO logins or configurations – consumer simple, enterprise secure."
That catch phrase was reiterated by Andrew Eye, Boxer CEO, when he announced the acquisition news on his company’s Website, stating, "Both of our teams strive to provide solutions that are ‘consumer simple and enterprise secure’ which made this an obvious fit." Eye went on to say that the Boxer team would continue the development of consumer apps like those already available on Apple and Google app stores.
Financial terms of the Boxer acquisition deal were not disclosed. However, Austin-based Boxer previously raised $3 million in series seed funding led by Sutter Hill Ventures back in October 2013.
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About the Author
David Marshall is an industry recognized virtualization and cloud computing expert, a seven time recipient of the VMware vExpert distinction, and has been heavily involved in the industry for the past 16 years. To help solve industry challenges, he co-founded and helped start several successful virtualization software companies such as ProTier, Surgient and Hyper9.
David is also a co-author of two very popular server virtualization books: "Advanced Server Virtualization: VMware and Microsoft Platforms in the Virtual Data Center" and "VMware ESX Essentials in the Virtual Data Center." He was also the Technical Editor on Wiley’s "Virtualization for Dummies" and "VMware VI3 for Dummies" books. David also authored countless articles for a number of well known technical magazines, including: InfoWorld, Virtual-Strategy and TechTarget. And in 2004, he founded the oldest independent virtualization and cloud computing news site, VMblog.com, which he still operates today.
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