If you follow this blog, you know my fascination with SpringSource and its empire-building ways. I must admit to having been caught off-guard by Monday’s announcement that it became part of somebody else’s empire, with VMware buying the company for a reported $420 million.VMware is not a name that has popped up much in the Java world. SpringSource, meanwhile, has been increasingly important to the Java ecosystem. ZDnet supplies some rather startling numbers: the Spring Framework supports half of enterprise Java projects, and SpringSource contributes a whopping 95 percent of bug fixes to Apache Tomcat, which underlies SpringSource’s app server offerings.So what’s the story here? Well, the ultimate goal for any company is to make money for its founders and investors, and I’m sure close to half a billion makes for a healthy payday for any number of people (though CNet’s Matt Asay, who’se had a big crush on SpringSource for a while, thinks bigger payoffs were in the offing if they held out). But how does this fit into the companies’ larger vision? Essentially, SpringSource claims it will provide the application server and app management infrastructure for VMware’s cloud platform, which will allows VMware to better provide platform as a service offerings. More and more, I find myself agreeing with Larry Ellison in not fully getting the point of cloud stuff, which either means I’m a visionary who can see through the BS or hopefully outdated. Still, diagrams like this don’t help. So, what do you all think of this? How will VMware find its new role in the Java community? Will the SpringSource team raise its sites above Java to a broader vision? Sound off in the comments. Cloud ComputingTechnology Industry