(InfoWorld) - Intel said Monday it plans to buy a $218.5 million stake in the software firm VMware, bolstering the companies' existing agreement to run VMware's virtualization software on Intel's processors.

Intel has been selling chips since November 2005 with specialized technology that allows enterprise IT managers to use a VMware application that treats each hardware platform as multiple "virtual" platforms. The companies also cooperate on their marketing and product development strategies.

The chip giant will make the purchase through its investment arm, Intel Capital, subject to approval by U.S. antitrust regulators.

The purchase will be part of an IPO, in which VMware plans to sell 10 percent of the company. VMware has not set a date for that sale, but it is expected to happen in the second half of 2007. In addition to purchasing stock, Intel will also gain the power to appoint one of its executives to the VMware board of directors. However, Intel will still hold a minority stake in the company with just 2.5 percent of VMware stock, according to an IPO registration form filed Monday by VMware with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The majority of VMware stock -- 89 percent -- will be held by EMC, the enterprise data storage company that acquired VMware in January 2004. That investment has paid off well as VMware has grown quickly. VMware revenue rose 82 percent last year, from $387.1 million in 2005 to $703.9 million in 2006.

VMware says that growth rate will continue as currently just a small fraction of existing servers and business desktop and notebook PCs use virtualization software. At the same time, many companies use only a portion of their computing power because the latest multicore processors have allowed their processing power to grow faster than workloads.

To solve that problem, businesses can use virtualization software to separate the operating system and application software from the underlying hardware. That allows them to combine multiple servers, storage, and networking units into pools of capacity they can allocate to wherever it is needed most, VMware said in the SEC form.

Coming so close to VMware's stock offering, Intel's investment is likely to generate greater demand for the new stock, and for the virtualization industry in general, one analyst said.

"Intel likes to know it has a more personal stake instead of waiting for market forces to advance the application of virtualization software," said Richard Doherty, research director at The Envisioneering Group. "It's not like that money was gathering dust on their shelf, but Intel's venture arm tends to trigger others to invest in an industry sector too."

The purchase also underlines a growing problem for software firms that have historically charged their licensing fees per processor, Doherty said. In this age of quad-core chips and virtualized server networks, that model could spell trouble for enterprise software providers, who could see their customers doing more work with fewer seats of software. By taking a stake in VMware, Intel is indicating that it sees virtualization firms claiming some of that revenue.

Also on Monday, VMware launched Lab Manager 2.5, a new version of its lab automation software. IT organizations use the application to efficiently manage their software development and testing labs, save money on IT management and deliver new software applications to market sooner, the company said.

In a separate announcement, Borland Software said it would integrate Lab Manager 2.5 with its Lifecycle Quality Management application, SilkCentral Test Manager 2007. Together, those applications will allow software developers to test their applications across multiple configurations using virtual platforms, instead of having to own many separate, physical test labs, Borland said.

(InfoWorld) - IT procurement managers are finding that Microsoft's Software Assurance maintenance program may not save them money as hoped, according to a survey by Forrester Research.

The Microsoft program guarantees updates to new products along with support and training tools. One of the most compelling reasons to buy Software Assurance was free upgrades from, for example, Windows XP to Windows Vista.

But Microsoft hasn't stuck to a consistent release schedule, which can actually mean the program could cost companies more money than simply buying new licenses as needed, according to the four-page Forrester report, written by Julie Giera, a vice president at the research firm.

For desktops, Software Assurance (SA) is 29 percent the cost of an annual license. If Microsoft goes at least four years between releases -- the company went about five years between XP and Vista releases -- the cost of Software Assurance works out at 116 percent of a new desktop license, Giera wrote. For servers, Software Assurance is about 25 percent the annual cost of a license.

"The uncertainty regarding product releases makes it difficult for IT procurement and sourcing professionals to justify a three-year SA renewal," the report said.

Microsoft has also not yet published a road map for products released since November 2006, such as Windows Vista, Office 2007, SharePoint 2007, Exchange 2007, and other products.

Of 63 IT procurement professionals Forrester surveyed, 86 percent said their licensing arrangement with Microsoft will expire this year. Twenty-six percent said they will not renew Software Assurance with 31 percent still undecided. Another 18 percent said they would renew for some products, with the remainder saying they would either probably or definitely renew.

About 74 percent of those who said they would not buy the same amount of Software Assurance maintenance said the economics did not make sense, and 59 percent said they did not expect to get a new product release.

Forrester is advising companies to negotiate early with Microsoft and hold out for better deals. "Discounts in the 7 percent to 15 percent range, depending on your size and level of spending, should be the foundation of any renewal discussion," the report said.

Companies should also simply do the math. "This sounds like common sense, but we're continually surprised by the number of companies that don't take the time to conduct a financial analysis of the costs and benefits of SA," Forrester said.

Microsoft could not be reached for immediate comment.

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(InfoWorld) - Dell plans to sell computers with preinstalled Linux outside the U.S. as well as offer the Ubuntu Linux distribution to small business customers.

More details will be revealed later, wrote Lionel Menchaca, digital media manager for Dell on a company blog on Friday.

"I wanted to be clear that Dell does have plans to offer Linux to more consumers in additional locations outside the United States," Menchaca wrote.

Dell is also encouraging more members of its Linux engineering team to post technical updates about specific distributions and open-source projects, he added.

Dell began selling two desktop PCs and a laptop with the Ubuntu 7.04 Linux distribution preinstalled in the U.S. in May, a move the company said was in response to consumer demand.

Although Linux's success has been squarely in the server market, consumers are showing increased interest in the open-source operating system as a desktop OS alternative to Microsoft's Windows. Desktop Linux has tended to have more appeal among developers and computer enthusiasts.

Dell already offers other Linux distributions from market leaders Red Hat and Novell on some of its servers and its Precision workstation line.

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