OpenStack Does Not Pose Threat to Cloud Market, Says VMware CEO
OpenStack Does Not Pose Threat to Cloud Market, Says VMware CEO by UCStrategies Staff
The CEO of VMware, Pat Gelsinger, recently explained how VMware is working with OpenStack, which is a set of tools used for developing and managing infrastructure-as-a-service clouds.
In response to concerns regarding the testing of OpenStack by VMware customers, Gelsinger noted: “We are building a strategy that will support OpenStack in a very effective way.”
He added that OpenStack remains “immature” and “an incremental opportunity” for VMware, which may suggest that it will take some time before VMware’s strategy of selling to OpenStack customers is built up.
Fears that organizations would be locked into VMware’s proprietary cloud stack led to the development of OpenStack; it competes with some of VMware's management products, but is not a direct competitor, or a replacement, for enterprises which operate using VMware.
VMware states that organizations which embrace OpenStack will require VMware products. Gelsinger said: “We are embracing the OpenStack APIs, adding them to our product and then selling our best-in-class common technologies into this OpenStack framework.”
Five Nines Technology Group is a Lincoln, Nebraska-based VMware partner, and the director of engineering at that company, Blaine Kahle, commented that VMware is keen to address competitive implications of OpenStack because it means that its own products will be involved in larger deals.
Kahle stated: “They have to be betting that they'll always have feature-complete products from their large portfolio that can layer under and over OpenStack frameworks.”
He added: “VMware knows they won't be making huge money on hypervisor and vCloud sales anymore, but potentially being able to sell their other software, such as Horizon Suite, to everyone regardless of hypervisor or management platform, is critical for them.”
Last July, VMware acquired Nicira, a startup which helped create Quantum, the networking piece of OpenStack; this helped the company get involved in OpenStack.
In September 2012, VMware officially joined the OpenStack Foundation which is a 3-year-old organization with over 230 member companies, such as IBM, Red Hat, HP, Cisco, Intel and Dell.
These are companies which rival VMware in the cloud, and there is some worry that VMware may influence the direction of OpenStack; nothing to this effect has materialized.
On the contrary, it seems as if VMware is seeking not to create waves in the OpenStack community. Varrow is a Greensboro, North Carolina-based VMware partner, and its managing partner, Dan Weiss, said: “My opinion is that VMware has adopted a strategy of 'Don't make enemies' with Openstack.”
VMware partners are convinced that Gelsinger’s strategy makes sense, but not all of the company’s field sales teams are on board with it, according to an anonymous partner. They said: “[VMware] are not embracing OpenStack -- they view it is competition. We have developers that work with OpenStack, and that has caused some friction.” (CY) Link