Virtual Instruments Opens R&D Center in London's Tech City

SAN JOSE, CA--(Marketwire - Oct 30, 2012) - Virtual Instruments, the leader in Infrastructure Performance Management (IPM) for physical, virtual and cloud computing environments, today announced it is opening a research and development center in London's Tech City. Building on the company's strong European presence, the center will serve as Virtual Instruments' EMEA Engineering Headquarters, with the team focusing on end-to-end product development and working with customers across the region.

The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, said:

"I am pleased to welcome Virtual Instruments into Tech City, recognizing the talent pool of engineers London is able to provide through its universities and dynamic cluster of tech firms. The arrival of another fast-growth company not only generates important new jobs for the city but underlines London's position as global leader in this sector."

Initially, Virtual Instruments will be recruiting for software engineers and software QA engineers. Over time, that will be expanded to add support, management and hardware engineering roles to the team.

"Innovation is the foundation of Virtual Instruments' success, and it will enable us to continue delivering industry-leading products," said Barry Cooks, vice president of engineering, Virtual Instruments. "The vibrancy and drive of the Tech City community matches our engineering culture, which is built around small teams of very smart people working hard to solve real-world customer problems. Our goal is to hire the best and the brightest people and provide a creative environment where they are free to design and deliver their ideas."

After considering a number of locations around the world, Virtual Instruments chose London's Tech City because of its strong engineering talent base, proximity to world class universities with top computer science and engineering programs and an engineering culture driven by innovation. The Virtual Instruments office is at 81 Rivington Street, right in the heart of Tech City.

Virtual Instruments partnered with the Tech City Investment Organisation (TCIO) and London & Partners on its search for a location in London. These organizations provided information on the business and talent landscape in the United Kingdom, introduced Virtual Instruments to similar companies in the area and arranged for the company to meet with and explore research activities in local universities.

Benjamin Southworth, deputy CEO at the Tech City Investment Organization, said: "We are thrilled to welcome Virtual Instruments to Tech City, a move which is further proof of East London's status as the top European location for international tech businesses. Throughout our discussions with Virtual Instruments, and as we showed them around the area, London's strong talent base and Tech City's unique vibrancy really stood out as selling points for the capital. We look forward to them becoming part of the community here."

Driving Continued Innovation

Global 2000 organizations are looking to leverage virtualization and cloud technologies to deliver more flexibility, but contend with an increasing amount of risk as they migrate mission-critical applications to private cloud environments. Ensuring that the private cloud can deliver the necessary levels of performance and availability requires new capabilities for an Infrastructure Performance Management platform that can provide visibility throughout all system layers in a multi-vendor environment.

As Virtual Instruments focuses on expanding its VirtualWisdom platform to support additional technologies and virtual environments, the company will look to the local engineering team to own end-to-end development for a set of products that will be wholly developed out of the London office. VirtualWisdom provides end-to-end visibility into real-time performance, health and utilization metrics from throughout the open system, driving improved performance and availability, while lowering the total cost of the infrastructure supporting mission-critical applications. Team members will also work closely with Virtual Instruments' EMEA customers to define the next generation of products.

About Virtual Instruments
Virtual Instruments is a leader in Infrastructure Performance Management for physical, virtual and cloud computing environments. The award-winning VirtualWisdom® platform provides visibility into real-time performance and health of the entire open systems stack along with metrics that assess utilization. Virtual Instruments improves the performance and availability of mission-critical applications while lowering the cost of the supporting infrastructure. Forbes Magazine recognized the company as #6 on its 2011 list of America's Most Promising Companies. The company was founded in June 2008 via a spin-out from Finisar Corp.; it has headquarters in San Jose, Calif., and can be found online at http://www.virtualinstruments.com.

About TCIO
The Tech City Investment Organisation (TCIO) was set up by UKTI in April 2011 to support the growth of the tech cluster in East London, helping to make it Europe's centre of innovation and the location of choice for tech and digital companies and investors. Our objectives are to: assist in securing Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in Tech City; engage with overseas VCs and help them to set up or start evaluating deal-flow in Tech City; and support the cluster, and raise its profile internationally.

In November 2010, the Prime Minister set out the Government's ambition to help East London become one of the world's great technology centres. Government is helping in two ways:

• firstly, by ensuring that national policy promotes enterprise and growth. The Entrepreneur Visa, Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme and opening up Government procurement are three examples of action central Government has taken in direct response to concerns expressed by Tech City companies about access to talent and finance. No 10 is responsible for driving national policy; and
• secondly, by attracting inward investment, and supporting companies in the cluster who want to expand into international markets. TCIO was set up to do this.

Venture-backed, high-potential companies like Airbnb and Yammer have landed in Tech City as a result of our support, and we have worked to secure investment from leading international technology firms including Cisco, and Intel. World-leading academic institutions like UCL and Imperial College, London are also setting up here. Alongside the start-ups and small businesses like Songkick, EDITD and Lightbox, are leading international tech companies such as Google. A well-established network of incubators like Seedcamp and White Bear Yard provide early stage funding and support, and top international investors including Accel and Index are also here.

For more information, visit www.techcityuk.com, follow us at @techcityuk or contact us at pressoffice@techcityuk.com

About London & Partners
London & Partners is the official promotional organisation for London. Our company attracts and delivers value to business, students and visitors. London & Partners is a not-for-profit public private partnership, funded by the Mayor of London and a network of commercial partners.

Our remit is to drive leisure and business visitors as well as bidding to secure major events in London, to unlock the city for overseas businesses who want to set up or expand in London and to promote the capital's world class universities to international students.

Our intention is to work in partnership with organisations in London and across the world to deliver our goal -- that London be globally recognised as the best big city on earth.
For more information visit www.londonandpartners.com.