The acquisition is part of the open source company’s bid to drive virtualisation from server to desktop, on both Linux and Windows. Qumranet supplies KVM (Kernel Virtual Machine), which is the only hypervisor to be included in the Linux kernel. The company also produces the virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) offering SolidICE, which is designed so a user’s Windows or Linux desktop can run on a KVM virtual machine hosted on a central server.
It raises questions of its commitment to Xen Hypervisor. Currently, Red Hat embeds the Citrix open-source Xen Hypervisor in its Enterprise Linux, but now plans to incorporate Qumranet’s KVM.
