VMware, a global leader in virtualization software, said Thursday that it hopes to expand rapidly in China, a market where it has only recently established a toehold.
VMware has built a 35-person research and development team in Beijing over the past six months and hopes to expand that to 350 by 2009.
"We look to China for a host of reasons," Diane Greene, chief executive of the software maker, told reporters. "China is a vast country with a lot of IT infrastructure."
VMware is 86 percent owned by data storage equipment and software maker EMC and controls more than two-thirds of the market for virtualization software, which allows a single computer to operate several operating systems simultaneously.
The estimated percentage of servers that will be shipped this year together with virtualization software is less than 5 percent, offering VMware and its rising number of rivals such as Microsoft a huge potential market for growth.
VMware's third-quarter profit tripled as strong sales of its business software helped it top market expectations. It has seen revenue double year-on-year for several quarters.
The company, which went public in August, has a market value of about $40 billion, making it the world's fourth largest publicly held software maker after Microsoft, Oracle, and SAP.
VMware reckons its product can be used by almost any organization, industry, or government that wants to utilize its IT infrastructure more efficiently.
Microsoft has entered the virtualization market, but analysts estimate that VMware still commands a two- to five-year lead with its third generation technology.
"This a big market, there is obviously room for competitors," Greene said.
