The “Somebody’s gonna buy EMC!” talk is rearing its head again recently in the marketplace. This is a perennial conversation. In fact, we already covered it…two years ago.

This time, though, there’s a new wrinkle, highlighted in this very interesting post by a financial blogger at Barron’s. (Never thought I’d use the words “interesting” and “financial” in the same sentence!)

VMware.

The picture painted by the Barron’s blogger is one in which the cart is running away with the horse–EMC’s “subsidiary” is now valued at almost the same level as EMC itself, and its stock is trading at 5 times the price of EMC’s (which only recently broke the $20 threshold). The suggestion is also that prospective buyers might be looking at the subsidiary, not the core company–VMware is literally changing the world right now, and EMC continues to be distracted by integrating its many, many acquisitions.

Then again, what kind of valuation can be put on VMware right now? What do you suppose the asking price would be? Would any company, even Cisco, be able to afford it?

Ah yes, there’s that “C” word again. Cisco has long been pointed out as the most likely potential suitor for EMC. They’re big enough, they’ve got products that go hand-in-glove with EMC’s, and right now, they’re pushing their data center management software, VFrame, as well as its integration with VMware, pretty hard. Meanwhile, throughout the data center, server virtualization is the name of the game, and right now VMware’s the only game in town.

Which means its highly unlikely EMC would part with it, or sell themselves out and lose control of an all-time cash cow just as it begins to bear serious fruit. But you never say never–and as Barron’s pointed out, buying the whole farm might be worth it just for that one miraculous bovine.