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Surprise! VMWare has joined OpenStack
September 10, 2012 | Author: Michael Stromann
Recently we found out that the open cloud platform alliance OpenStack includes several members from EMC. It was a surprise, because EMC owns VMWare - the direct competitor of OpenStack. We thought that it was a little misunderstanding in the Swedish family EMC-VMWare. But this wasn't the last surprise in this story. In the end of the last week, VMWare personally became the "Gold member" in OpenStack. (Recall, OpenStack was founded two years ago in order to struggle against the dominance of Amazons's public cloud and VMWare's data-center cloud management systems). Together with VMWare two more giants: Intel and NEC joined OpenStack on Friday. So now, on the cloud platform market we have the confrontation: Amazon vs "Everyone else". You may think that the forces are not equal, but ...
It's likely that VMWare's entry hardly strengthen OpenStack. First, VMWare is not going to stop developing its (competing) solutions vCloud cloud platform and Cloud Foundry. The company is considering it's contribution to OpenStack as an diversification of investments in cloud platforms. Second, it's probably just a political (or marketing) step by VMWare. Because its main virtualization-competitor Citrix has recently quit OpenStack. So it's an excellent opportunity to turn the whole cloud market against the rival.
In result, OpenStack may not just become the Soviet Union but the Soviet Union with political games. At first glance, such organization can't be effective.
See also: Top 10 Public Cloud Platforms
