VMware's Raghu Raghuram said OpenStack, the open source cloud platform, will turn out to be an opportunity for the company because it will ultimately be able to sell its wares into best-of-breed environments.
Speaking at an Oppenheimer investment conference, Raghuram, executive vice president of cloud infrastructure and management, positioned VMware's VCloud suite vs. OpenStack. The upshot is that the two stacks play to different audiences. He said:
OpenStack is an open framework for companies to assemble, our systems integrators for that matter, to assemble their own cloud solution. So, they can pick best of breed, hypervise their best of breed storage components, network components, management components, etc. and put together a solution. VMware traditionally has been selling a suite, which is an integrated solution of one of those components in order to build a cloud. So, the analogy that I usually draw is one of the home theater market. So, there are customers that would assemble their own home theater and there are customers that buy a home theater in the market. So, two different ways of achieving the same goal. So, we have traditionally been, to continue the analogy one step further, in this home theater in a box offering market, right? So, VCloud suite is one integrated suite, the customers get everything they would need to build a cloud. We see OpenStack as, for VMware, an opportunity to expand our addressable market, because we can now supply components to those that want to assemble their own cloud solution.
Raghuram's take was notable, but it's unclear whether OpenStack enterprises, which are likely to favor open source are really going to consider VMware applications. Time will tell if OpenStack turns out to be more of a rival to VMware.
Also see: Where does OpenStack go from here? | Happy Birthday OpenStack! How did you grow up so fast?
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