Economic Meltdown Hits Virtualization Provider EgeneraEconomic Meltdown Hits Virtualization Provider Egenera

In another chink in the armor of the thriving virtualization market, Egenera reported that it will cut its sales staff by 40% and shift key parts of its business to hardware vendors, including Dell.

As a data center virtualization provider, Egenera has teamed up with Dell to market Dell's PAN System as a piece of the hardware giant's virtualization portfolio. The two companies have partnered to promote virtualization and data center automation, going beyond delivery of blade chassis.

A white paper by Egenera describes PAN Manager's architecture and capabilities and how Egenera's advanced technology eliminates redundant equipment and data center complexity while improving responsiveness and agility (registration required).

"We're prepared for a fairly dramatic economic slowdown," Egenera's president and chief executive, Mike Thompson, told The Boston Globe. "We've seen signs of a slowdown in the past year, so we dialed back our expenses."

Egenera traces its roots to 2000 when it focused on selling blade servers, but it gradually moved into developing virtualization software, where it now plans to continue its focus.

After becoming a data center virtualization provider, Egenera partnered with Dell to deliver an advanced phase of virtualization by combining server virtualization with network and storage virtualization in an effort to transform the physical and virtual IT infrastructure into flexible and scalable assets that can be used when they're needed by customers.

Egenera has also partnered with EMC and Citrix XenServer in providing advanced virtualization technology for data centers. While it had sold directly to customers in the past, Egenera said it will conserve financial resources by using its partners to market its products and services.