Quick initial reaction: scratching head.
Vmware recently shook up the Cloud Computing world with the launch of Cloud Foundry and I think most of us would have pegged them as an infrastructure company. Then all of a sudden they buy Sliderocket, the great collaborative presentations company. Why is this a big deal? Probably not for the $ value, but it may show Vmware’s intentions of getting in the Cloud Apps business big time.
After all, they already have an almost forgotten asset, Zimbra. Microsoft, Google, Salesforce, Zoho … watch out! (Really?)
P.S. I guess the phones are ringing at Vmware, with every single Cloud App startup trying to get bought…

Game on, cloud app vendors. Too early? A bit. Zimbra is a great email platform- a best kept secret type of product. VMWare is putting some meaningful effort into its development. A presentation piece as robust as Zimbra would make a killer combo if there was meaningful integration. That leaves CRM, and cloud docs (not Zimbra’s strength) as next steps. Do you want to play that game, VMWare?