VMware makes progress towards the (hybrid) cloud - now let's watch the adoption

VMware seems to have made February the month of the cloud and is promising 28 days of Cloud Insight (see more here). VMware execs must be pretty confident that they have enough material - as they did not even include the recently (well, last week) announced partnership with Google (more here).

See: VMware's hybrid cloud roadmap takes direction with vSphere 6, Nvidia collaboration

After reviewing the press release from February 2, I've identified the implications of this announcement for customers, partners, and competitors.

SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwired - February 02, 2015) - VMware, Inc. (NYSE: VMW) today announced VMware vSphere® 6, the newest edition of the industry-defining virtualization solution for the hybrid cloud and foundation for the software-defined data center. With more than 650 new features and innovations, VMware vSphere 6 will provide customers with a highly available, resilient, on-demand cloud infrastructure to run, protect and manage any application. VMware vSphere 6 will be complemented by the newest releases of VMware vCloud® Suite 6, VMware vSphere with Operations Management™ 6, and VMware Virtual SAN™ 6.

Implications for VMware customers

Good news for VMware customers, always good to see a vendor deliver. The remote instance creation capabilities can become a real option for HA strategies. The container performance should encourage customers with next generation application projects to take note and potentially evaluate the new capabilities. Overall customers need to weigh benefits vs license and implementation costs of the new VMware products.

What a hybrid cloud is in the 'multi-cloud era,' and why you may already have one

What a hybrid cloud is in the 'multi-cloud era,' and why you may already have one

Now that the services used by an enterprise and provided to its customers may be hosted on servers in the public cloud or on-premises, maybe "hybrid cloud" isn't an architecture any more. While that may the case, that's not stopping some in the digital transformation business from proclaiming it a way of work unto itself.

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Implications for VMware partners

Equally good news when the main ecosystem anchor delivers. While some longer term opportunities may vanish (e.g. around HA) others may arise (e.g. OpenStack). Partners need to revisit their service and product portfolio in the light of thee substantial product announcements and chart their value adding strategy for the next years, potentially from anew.

Implications for VMware competitors

It is clear that VMware is making true on its features and capabilities partially discussed at VMworld 2014. If a competitor was counting on VMware not delivering, it is bad news for them now. The next months will have to show what impact the new products will have on the market and competitors need to chart their product and marketing strategies accordingly to achieve differentiation.

Overall MyPOV

Always good to see a vendor deliver on their talking points. Many of the new capabilities VMware announced and now delivered are not 'low hanging fruit' - so congratulations to the VMware R&D teams for their progress. Now it's back to customers to evaluate the benefit / cost relationship of the new VMware products, where some areas look favorable, others look more difficult. Customers should be aware of alternatives and weigh their options accordingly. On the flipside VMware offers one integrated data center platform that is engineered and tested together - so when VMware delivers on that with good quality - it is a very valuable platform for customers.

The main act for VMware - around vCloud Air - is still to come. It will be key to understand VMware's progress and status on that crucial product before making ultimate decisions around VMware product adoption and rollout.