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It has been a busy year for VMware in terms of acquisitions. This followed an almost equally busy 2010, during which it bought both SpringSouce, incorporating its technology into vFabric, and Zimbra from Yahoo, which it has kept separate.

Most of the 2011 buys we have covered in various posts here, but a few escaped our attention. I thought it would be a nice year-end post to review where things stand with each technology. By comparison, Google this past year acquired more than two dozen companies.

Things have been quiet on the Zimbra front for some time now, so it's nice to hear a little news: VMware has released a Zimbra client for Android. But it describes the apps as a "fling."

Zimbra for Android is free, but there is no support and no guarantee that it will ever become part of an official product offering. In other words, it's nothing you want to seriously deploy, but if you're both a Zimbra user and an Android user you might want to check it out and give VMware your feedback.

VMware announced today that it will acquire Socialcast, an enterprise microblogging and social network software-as-a-service. The move expands VMware's software-as-a-service portfolio, which also includes Zimbra, Mozy and SlideRocket. VMware is owned by EMC.

Zimbra is marking its full integration with VMware in the form of a new virtual appliance designed for the data center and hosting markets. The new service combines VMware's vSphere with the Zimbra email client in a portable product called the Zimbra Collaboration Suite Appliance.

It's part of the new VMware stack for the cloud that competes with Google Apps, Microsoft Exchange and providers such as Red Hat.

VMware sees an advantage with its portability and its ability to meet the needs of a customer that is still a bit uncertain about a move to the cloud.

Watch this battle unfold. The virtualization wars are just getting started.

On one side we have Microsoft, which announced changes in its licensing structures this week. The change reflects an understanding that the customer wants full access to its virtualization platform and not be charged a tax for that right to access it on a PC, no matter if it is at work or in their home.

And in true fashion, Microsoft is on the attack, Citrix at its side, in a full on fight with VMware for the virtualization market.

Drupal's founder is calling for open source in the enterprise and in the cloud. This should be no surprise, coming from someone like Dries Buytaert. But it is still interesting, considering the source and the point he makes about the actual lack of open source in cloud computing.

Drupal is one of the most popular, open source content management systems. Buytaert created it initially as a messaging board. It went open-source in 2001.

On Jan 12, VMware agreed to purchase Zimbra, a division of Yahoo! that's known for its easy-to-use, paid inbox service. Zimbra, primarily a consumer application to date, offered a cloud solution last fall.

Now this cloud service is going to be part of VMware's major push of enterprise services to the cloud. Thinking back a decade or so, this reminds us of the power of Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office, arguably the best pairing and best business franchise in technology history, a $30 billion business today.

VMware's acquisition of Zimbra from Yahoo points to a new form of partnership in the tech word. It's one that could define the big winners in the battle for a major piece of the enterprise market.

The acquisition shows how VMware is seeking to do more than provide virtualization technology. By packaging Zimbra's popular, open-source collaboration software, VMware can provide a more enhanced service, one that combines virtualization technology with email and calendar applications.

It rings similar to Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard's alliance announced today that will package Microsoft technology on HP servers.

Given yesterday's cloud computing announcements from Microsoft, it only seems reasonable for Yahoo to make at least some announcements about cloud computing as well. Today, Yahoo announced that it will offer the Zimbra collaboration suite as a hosted solution for educational institutions. According to Yahoo, over 400 schools are already using Zimbra at this time. While this hosted solution is currently only available to educational institutions, chances are that Yahoo is testing the waters with this release and will soon offer a similar solution to small businesses.