VMware

VMware, Inc. is a U.S. software company that provides cloud and virtualization software and services,  and was the first to successfully virtualize the x86 architecture. Founded in 1998, VMware is based in Palo Alto, California. In 2004 it was acquired by and became a subsidiary of EMC Corporation, then on August 14, 2007, EMC sold 15% of the company in a New York Stock Exchange IPO. The company trades under the symbol VMW.

VMware's desktop software runs on Microsoft Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X, while its enterprise software hypervisors for servers, VMware ESX and VMware ESXi, are bare-metal hypervisors that run directly on server hardware without requiring an additional underlying operating system.