Cisco will purchase $150 million of VMware Class A common shares currently held by EMC Corporation, VMware's parent company. Upon closing of the investment, Cisco will own approximately 1.6 percent of VMware’s total outstanding common stock (less than one percent of the combined voting power of VMware’s outstanding common stock).

VMware has agreed to consider the appointment of a Cisco executive to VMware's board of directors at a future date. Cisco’s purchase is intended to strengthen inter-company collaboration towards accelerating customer adoption of VMware virtualization products with Cisco networking infrastructure and the development of customer solutions that address the intersection of virtualization and networking technologies.