Qumranet, Inc. was an enterprise software company offering a

desktop virtualization Desktop virtualization is a software technology that separates the desktop environment and associated application software from the physical client device that is used to access it. Desktop virtualization can be used in conjunction with applicati ...

platform based on hosted desktops in

Kernel-based Virtual Machine Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) is a virtualization module in the Linux kernel that allows the kernel to function as a hypervisor. It was merged into the mainline Linux kernel in version 2.6.20, which was released on February 5, 2007. KV ...

s (KVM) on servers, linked with their

SPICE A spice is a seed, fruit, root, bark, or other plant substance primarily used for flavoring or coloring food. Spices are distinguished from herbs, which are the leaves, flowers, or stems of plants used for flavoring or as a garnish. Spice ...

protocol. The company was also the creator, maintainer and global sponsor of the KVM open source hypervisor.

History

The company was founded in 2005 by CEO Benny Schnaider, with Rami Tamir as president, Moshe Bar as CTO, and chairman Dr. Giora Yaron. Qumranet had raised $20 million in two financing rounds from its founders,

Norwest Venture Partners Norwest Venture Partners (Norwest) is an American venture and growth equity investment firm. The firm targets early to late-stage venture and growth equity investments across several sectors, including cloud computing and information technology, ...

Cisco Systems Cisco Systems, Inc., commonly known as Cisco, is an American-based multinational digital communications technology conglomerate corporation headquartered in San Jose, California. Cisco develops, manufactures, and sells networking hardware, ...

, and Sequoia Capital, in addition to investment by the founding partners. The company's first product, named "Solid ICE", hosted Windows and Linux desktops on central servers located in a data center. The

Ra'anana Ra'anana ( he, רַעֲנָנָּה, lit. "Fresh") is a city in the southern Sharon Plain of the Central District of Israel. It was founded in 1922 as an American-Jewish settlement, 1 km south of the village of Tabsur, where an important ...

-based company developed a virtualization technology for IT data centers. From a very low-profile Israeli startup the company made waves with the rapid acceptance of KVM into the

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, w ...

kernel, and their ''Solid ICE''

platform has received serious attention. Avi Kivity was the lead developer and maintainer of the Kernel-based Virtual Machine project from mid-2006, that has been part of the Linux kernel since the 2.6.20 release in February 2007. Qumranet was on the

Gartner Gartner, Inc is a technological research and consulting firm based in Stamford, Connecticut that conducts research on technology and shares this research both through private consulting as well as executive programs and conferences. Its client ...

Group's 2008 list of "Cool Vendors," an award given to small companies with advanced technology. On September 4, 2008, Qumranet was acquired by Red Hat, Inc. for $107 million.

Key executives

* Benny Schnaider, co-founder, chief executive officer and director * Rami Tamir, Co-Founder, president and director * Moshe Bar Ph.D., co-founder and chief technology officer * Giora Yaron Ph.D, co-founder and chairman of the boardBusinessweek.com
"Qumranet, Inc." * Shmil Levy, board member, Sequoia Capital * Vab Goel, board member,

References

{{reflist

External links

* http://www.qumranet.com/
archived version
Software companies established in 2005 Red Hat Remote desktop Software companies of Israel Virtualization software Israeli companies established in 2005