Yes, it's official now.

Citrix will announce its acquisition of XenSource tomorrow, The Register has learned.

This confirms some early rumours.

There is a small surge of visitors who reach our Web site for the first time. They are looking for information about a XenSource acquisition. We erroneously mentioned Novell in this context in the past. Later we found out that Novell had quietly acquired another virtualisation company already. It addressed speculations and was following by strategic partnerships.

On Saturday we will post the usual batch of positive news and some items will demonstrate the nearness of Novell and XenSource. Thus, the impact of this acquisition on Novell will be interesting.

With Xen in the hands (and agenda) of Citrix, KVM might have more room to breathe in the Linux universe. Bernard Golden (shown in the videos at the bottom) has more to say in a quick roundup from LinuxWorld.

Crosby was also concerned about the proliferation of Linux virtualization technologies; meaning KVM, although there are still further Linux virtualization initiatives. His plaintive cry is that this fragmentation of effort might allow Microsoft to win the virtualization race; the race, that is, to be the replacement technology for VMware. While his concern is understandable, I'm not sure there's any real way to solve it, particularly as a couple of the alternative technologies -- including KVM-- emanate from commercial companies that, presumably, have deep enough pockets to keep the technologies going for the foreseeable future.

Yesterday, one knowledgeable blogger criticised XenSource for taking a wrong approach in implementation. He argued that KVM got it right. And amid VMWare's IPO, accusations are circulating as well. VMWare is said to have used Linux and renamed it.





Update: this acquisition appears to be a reason to worry. There is some early analysis available now ending with "Linux, incidentally, got barely a mention."