“We partnered with Google because Google wanted to partner with us and Amazon didn’t want to partner with us,” IBM i Chief Architect Steve Will said during a panel discussion at the inaugural POWERUp conference in San Antonio, Texas, in June 2018. “So hey Google is going to succeed with Power. Now I have Amazon calling, asking us.”
Source: IBM i Clouds Proliferating At Rapid Clip – IT Jungle
All the VMware/public cloud partnerships.
Source: VMware’s ‘Switzerland’ cloud partnership strategy will be a key focus at upcoming VMworld
The OpenShift-Azure deal extends collaboration between Microsoft and Red Hat that includes the addition of Microsoft SQL server on Red Hat Enterprise Linux. The deal signaled Microsoft’s embrace of OpenShift application container management.
The expanded partnership also gives OpenShift users access to public cloud services such as Azure Cosmos and SQL databases along with cloud-based machine learning models aimed at development of cloud-native enterprise applications.
OpenShift on Azure would “simplify container management on Kubernetes and help customers innovate on their cloud journeys,” added Scott Guthrie, executive vice president of Microsoft’s Cloud and AI Group.
Azure Red Hat OpenShift is available now on Microsoft Azure
As part of the new relationship between the companies, Docker and Salesforce’s recently acquired MuleSoft division will cross-sell each other’s products when courting companies that are looking to modernize their software development organizations. The collaboration extends beyond that, however; the two companies will also do integration work aimed at helping mutual customers take advantage of their investments in one platform by extending capabilities to the other platform.
Original source: Salesforce makes undisclosed “strategic investment” in Docker, companies will cross-sell MuleSoft and Docker Enterprise
When asked about Google’s on-premises strategy, Pichai said the company is “thoughtfully looking at it,” and cited its partnerships with SAP, Pivotal, and VMware. Google also has a hybrid-cloud product with Cisco and its own Kubernetes-based GKE On Prem available to early access customers.
On-premises data centers remain “a big, big requirement for customers,” and these partnerships help Google address those companies’ needs, Pichai said. When it comes to hybrid cloud, “we are thinking about how to do that better,” Pichai said. “Our overall approach to cloud hybrid modernization I think is the right long-term direction and so we are doing that.”
Original source: Google Cloud Revenue
When asked about Google’s on-premises strategy, Pichai said the company is “thoughtfully looking at it,” and cited its partnerships with SAP, Pivotal, and VMware. Google also has a hybrid-cloud product with Cisco and its own Kubernetes-based GKE On Prem available to early access customers.
On-premises data centers remain “a big, big requirement for customers,” and these partnerships help Google address those companies’ needs, Pichai said. When it comes to hybrid cloud, “we are thinking about how to do that better,” Pichai said. “Our overall approach to cloud hybrid modernization I think is the right long-term direction and so we are doing that.”
Original source: Google Cloud Revenue
A nice listing of some metrics to monitor out of the box in PCF, and just performance metrics, but meatware and product related stuff too.
Original source: Pivotal and New Relic Deliver Visibility, Value, and Velocity
“VMware’s ability to strategically partner to respond to shifting market forces is an impressive competency that should not be underestimated.”
Original source: Impressions from VMworld
Putting 3rd party middleware into Google Cloud:
“Among the commercial applications included in the marketplace are big data, database and machine learning applications along with developer tools. Meanwhile, open source applications range from WordPress and the Apache Cassandra NoSQL database to Apache Spark cluster computing.”
Original source: Google Banks on Kubernetes in Cloud Wars
‘Rollout of the partnership will occur in two phases, with Azure support for OpenShift Container Platform and Red Hat Enterprise Linux on Azure and Azure Stack available now. The jointly managed OpenShift on Azure project is slated to go into its preview phase “in the coming months.”’
Original source: Microsoft sees Red …Hat for OpenShift-on-Azure public cloud offering
Also contains a chronology of IBM/RedHat partnerships.
Original source: IBM, Red Hat couple containers for hybrid cloud deployments
“the bots will give users the ability to approve expense reports right from Slack, upload expense receipts, search for and book flights, and create basic expense reports from within a bot chat”
Original source: Slack/Concur integration
“the bots will give users the ability to approve expense reports right from Slack, upload expense receipts, search for and book flights, and create basic expense reports from within a bot chat”
Original source: Slack/Concur integration
Finally, an explanation of that Cisco/Google partnership:
“CloudCenter is key to the hybrid cloud partnership that Cisco and Google recently announced, where CloudCenter will be used to integrate Google Cloud Platform services with on-premises datacenters. The integrated offering includes Cisco’s Hyperflex hyperconverged infrastructure and Nexus 9k networking. Cisco is also leveraging its networking (CSR) and security (Stealthwatch Cloud) portfolio to ensure a consistent environment across the hybrid cloud. Google’s Kubernetes container runtime uses Apigee to consume and manage APIs, as well as Google’s range of cloud services, including machine learning and visual recognition. The open source Istio service management platform is key to the offering, supported in CloudCenter, providing traffic management, observability, policy enforcement and service identity and security for microservices. There will also be integrations to AppDynamics. Solution engineering efforts are underway, and Cisco and Google are working on predefined statements of work that can be executed by both companies’ direct sales teams and by the partner channels. The joint offering will be fully supported by the Cisco Technical Assistance Center. The Cisco-Google partnership on hybrid cloud is non-exclusive, but Google is working closely with Cisco on the joint engineering work around open hybrid cloud.”
Original source: Cisco is strengthening its ‘cloud first’ posture
‘Datical automatically examines SQL scripts created by developers and aligns them with a common object model. “We create a package so you have an immutable artifact that goes from development to test to production just like your app code,” Reeves said. The software checks for inefficiencies, such as the use of multiple indices or joins, and flags them before changing the schema…. Datical’s containerized image can be run with Concourse as part of a testing pipeline to enable application development teams to push application and database changes through the release cycle at the same time. The company’s will cross-sell each other products, although the arrangement isn’t exclusive, Reeves said.’
Link to original
The cloud initiative combines Google’s de facto standard Kubernetes cluster orchestration platform for managing applications and services across hybrid infrastructure with Cisco’s networking and security expertise. It also leverages Cisco’s push into hyper-converged infrastructure. Along with extending security to application containers and other micro-services, the deal would allow users to monitor application behavior running on hybrid platforms, the partners said.
The other pillar of the collaboration is Istio, another open source tool released earlier this year to help manage micro-services via what developers call a “service mesh network.” Working with Kubernetes, Istio aims to provide a uniform means of connecting and managing micro-services.
And, more here:
The companies will offer the joint solution to a limited number of customers during the first part of 2018 with generally availability coming later in the year.
Some BOM’ing of Azure Stack:
Azure Stack is made of two basic components, the underlying infrastructure that customers purchase from one of Microsoft’s certified partners (initially Dell EMC, HPE and Lenovo) and software that is licensed from Microsoft.The software includes basic IaaS functions that make up a cloud, such as virtual machines, storage and virtual networking. Azure Stack includes some platform-as-a-service (PaaS) application-development features including the Azure Container Service and Microsoft’s Azure Functions serverless computing software, plus MySQL and SQL Server support. It comes with Azure Active Directory for user authentication.Customers also have access to a wide range of third-party apps from the Azure Marketplace, including OS images from companies like Red Hat and SuSE, and templates that can be installed to run programs like Cloud Foundry, Kubernetes and Mesosphere.On the hardware side, Azure Stack runs on a hyperconverged infrastructure stack that Microsoft and its hardware vendors have certified. The smallest production-level Azure Stack deployment is a four-server rack with three physical switches and a lifecycle management server host. Individual racks can scale up to 12 servers, and eventually, multiple racks can be scaled together. Dell EMC, HPE and Lenovo are initial launch partners. Cisco plans to offer a certified Azure Stack platform based on its UCS hardware line by the end of 2017 and Huawei will roll out Azure Stack support by the end of 2018.IDC Data Center Networking Research Analyst Brad Casemore says he believes customers will need to run at least a 10 Gigabit Ethernet cabling with dual-port mixing. Converged network interface cards, support for BGP and data center bridging are important too. Microsoft estimates that a full-sized, 12-rack server unit of Azure Stack can supply about 400 virtual machines with 2 CPUs and 7 GB of RAM, with resiliency.
And Lydia explains the “people want private cloud ¯_(ツ)_/¯” angle:
“This is definitely a plus in the Microsoft portfolio,” says Gartner VP and Distinguished Analyst Lydia Leong, but she says it’s not right for every customer. “I don’t think this is a fundamental game-changer in the dynamics of the IaaS market,” she notes, but “this is going to be another thing to compel Microsoft-centric organizations to use Azure.”
Leong expects this could be beneficial for customers who want to use Azure but some reason such as regulations, data sensitivity, or location of data prevents them from using the public cloud. If a customer has sensitive data they’re not willing to put in the public cloud, they could deploy Azure Stack behind their firewall to process data, then relatively easily interact with applications and data in the public cloud.
Good round-up of AWS’s private cloud stuff:
Source: AWS talking with VMware about building on-premises software: report
“Managed Pivotal Cloud Foundry is Rackspace’s first step into the managed platform space, as we move up the stack to solutions that customers want our help with,” wrote Brannon Lacey, vice president of applications and platforms at Rackspace, in today’s announcement. “It is a solution that helps customers get up and running on Pivotal Cloud Foundry quickly and stay up and running, with operational support and proactive monitoring. This way, in-house teams can focus on innovation and getting out to market quickly while Rackspace handles the backend.”
So says Ben Thompson in his newsletter today:
This is why Twitter’s increased focus on securing these video deals feels like such an admission of failure: the company is basically admitting that, despite the fact it contains some of the best content — given to it for free — in the world, it simply can’t figure out how to make that into a business, so instead it is (presumably) paying to create content that it can monetize more easily. The Bloomberg deal, which was first reported on Sunday, is particularly poignant on this point: Twitter is (again, presumably) paying for content about business and financial markets even as the most valuable business and financial market information is being posted for free on Twitter. That the company cannot build a business on that fact is certainly a disappointment.
You’ll have to subscribe to read the rest. For $100 a year, it’s worth it.
Meanwhile, some stats from Sara Fischer at Axios:
In total, Twitter has closed over 40 live stream partnerships around the world with sports leagues, media companies, etc. The company increased live programming by 60% last quarter and aired roughly 800 hours of live content reaching 45 million viewers. Of those hours, 51% were sports, 35% were news and politics, and 14% were entertainment. Above all, Twitter says 55% of its unique viewers are under the age of 25, a stat that directly competes with Snapchat’s coveted millennial demographic.
There’s also an extensive list of the video partnerships and shows to be broadcast in Twitter.
With DockerCon this week, there’s no end of Docker quotables and items. Here’s my collection
Once landed in an account, Docker usage grows their CEO says:
There has also been expansion within customers, with organizations that start with Docker expanding their usage on average by five times within six months
Way back in 2015, the (now annual?) DataDog study of Docker usage among their customers said that 2/3 of companies that try Docker adopt it. Which is all to say: once it gets in, it spreads.
A toolkit for putting together docker stacks:
In essence, Moby is the build system that creates Docker Community Edition, which is akin to Fedora, and Docker Enterprise is derived from Moby and is akin to Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Link
People got all freaked out. I’d even say “freaked the fuck out.” Competitors, of course, gloated, if only in silence. Criticism of handling the announcement aside (ideally, you wouldn’t like to kick up a stink), I feel like it was more like a tempest in a teapot.
Global 2000 customers have somewhere on the order of thousands to tens of thousands of applications, and across these major firms, less than 5 percent of the applications have been containerized so far. While somewhere between 5 percent and 10 percent of the applications that are being containerized are net-new, microservices-style applications that everyone is talking about all the time, the other 90 percent to 95 percent are just lifting and shifting legacy applications from bare metal or virtual machines to containers. Link
Docker bounces back and forth between “replacement for VMware” and “a different thing, so don’t worry about VMware.” In this round of Docker news, there’s been some strong pull towards the “replacement for VMware” camp. To be fair, it’s more like doing both:
In general, says Johnston, customers who move from bare metal or VMs to Docker containers can provision, scale, and deploy applications up to 75 percent faster, and those moving from bare metal to containers can save 50 percent on compute and those who are moving from VMs will save around 25 percent. Link
This might also come from the obvious move to start gobbling up legacy (more accurately “existing”) applications. Here, Docker had two customer reference:
Northern Trust, a leading international financial services company, experienced deployment times that were 4X faster and noted a 2X improvement in infrastructure utilization
And, Microsoft IT:
Microsoft is not only a partner in this program; their IT organization is also a beta customer. Microsoft IT increased app density 4X with zero impact to performance and were able to reduce their infrastructure costs by a third.
There was also a story of Visa using Docker:
Kocherlakota said Visa is aiming to move as many workloads at it can to the container model to help improve overall efficiency.
Other tech companies are often cautious about working with Docker. They’re not really certain about how it helps or threatens their position in the IT stack and, therefore, their ability to sell higher profit margin products and services. No one wants to become the x86 manufacturer of the cloud (read: low margin, commodity).
I’ve noticed this cautiousness slightly melting as more and more vendors are at least putting their stuff in Docker images and, on the public cloud front, supporting the use of Docker. My company, Pivotal, ingests Docker images.
A brief whack at why Microsoft cares, from Christopher Tozzi:
Although there remains work to do to get Docker on Windows ready for prime time, the platform will be important in helping Windows Server stay as nimble as Linux environments in hosting the workloads of the future…. Microsoft’s interest in Docker may seem strange. Microsoft already offers traditional virtual machine products, most notably Hyper-V. In some respects, Docker containers compete with virtual machine platforms…. But that’s not necessarily the case. Depending on how they’re used, containers can complement virtual machines, rather than replace them. If you use virtual machines to host the environment in which Docker runs, your Docker environment becomes more scalable and portable than it would be if it ran on bare metal. That’s likely the type of use case Microsoft envisions for containers on Windows.
More from Nick Martin on Microsoft and Docker.
Oracle bundling middleware in Docker containers:
Oracle becomes the latest enterprise IT vendor to jump on the Docker container bandwagon as it seeks to expand its reach in the public cloud market. Among the container-based application, middleware and development tools made available on the container platform are Oracle’s MySQL database and its WebLogic server. Those tools are in addition to the more than 100 images of Oracle products already available on Docker Hub, its cloud-based image registry.
I’m often asked to explain all the various cloud stacks, to help Pivotal buyers sort out what CaaS, PaaS, cloud-native, and “cloud strategy” means. They’re trying to figure out their planning for building out new IT, for “doing DevOps.” It’s a mess out there w/r/t to figuring all this out if you’re not a vendor or analyst who’s steeped in this shoggoth every day.
In all the Docker, container, and cloud-native wars, the revenue battle for vendors is mostly about two things:
On that second point, here’s my latest attempt to describe how things are shaking out category/definition wise:
Of all the SPI cloud categories, PaaS is the most problematic place as all us vendors hate the PaaS term and are trying to re-define what it means. I would break PaaS into two categories currently: (1.) container orchestration, and, (2.) cloud platform.
Container orchestration takes an IaaS and manages the installation and configuration of container images on your new cloud. By “images” here, I mean that you’ve chosen to put your software (probably custom written software, not packaged software) into containers (or the delegated way we do it with buildpacks in CF), specified how all the different nodes are wired together with all the ACLs and configuration, and then given it over to the orchestration software to deploy those containers, set the configuration, and do the ongoing health-checks/remediation.
Ideally, the orchestration platform should also have “day 2” tools to help you monitor and manager (“fix”) problems that happen in production. I assume things like kubernetes, the Docker/Moby constellation of things, Mesosphere, etc. fit here.
People are obsessed with container orchestration now and it’s pretty much all anyone talks about. I think all this is what’s becoming known as “CaaS” – Containers as a Service.
(On this next section, I’m extremely monetarily biased, of course:) A cloud platform either has or depends on an orchestration layer, but adds in integrated middle-ware, ALM tools (from basics like “cf push”, and an overall programming and deployment model with all the tools and enforcements. Heroku is the classic example here in public cloud, and now Cloud Foundry (CF) has taken over this model in public and private cloud, the second (it seems) where most of the usage and money is, at least in the enterprise space. I’d argue, that CF is the enterprise market-leader (by revenue at least, but increasingly penetration in the F500 – while Pivotal has impressive numbers, throw in the other CF distros and it’s even larger, no doubt); at the very least, “the highest growth and in enterprise production usage.” That all depends how you slice it, and of course my slicing favors me.
A cloud platform “pulls together” everything into a fully working “cloud” that deploy and provisions the servers, builds/maintains/deploys the containers, takes care of your networking configuration and concerns (inc. firewalls, etc.), and configs/manages all the middleware needed (e.g. “I want a database” means you just ask for it, instead of having to configure it and make container images of it and specify how it all works together).
The end goal of a cloud platform is the original end-goal of a PaaS: developers don’t have to “setup” any of the infrastructure or, really, middleware (databases, queues, etc.) that they use: they just write the “business logic” of their applications.
All this standardization is technically “restrictive” (developers can’t just install anything they download off the Internet, it has to be integrated into the platform). This is why we often call this model “opinionated,” but it follows the same contract/promises model that Google SREs follow: we promise we can support your applications in production if you use only the things we support, otherwise it’s all on you.
However, the benefit of such opinions is a huge jump in productivity as we see at all our customers: one Pivotal customer manages 1,000+ applications (all angles toward very frequent, DevOps-style releases for fast feedback loops and all that small batch stuff) with just 4 PCF operations staff, etc.
Our DIY white paper makes the case that snow-flaking this all out is a bad idea. At the very least, if you build your own platform, you should try to just have one used organization wide.
In comparing CaaS and cloud platform, the key distinction to me is that a cloud platform bundles and integrates together all your middleware and “services” frameworks. For example, if you want to do microservices with all the bulk-heads and such, that functionality should be built into the cloud platform – you should have to go read-up how to set most of that up. PCF, of course, has Spring Cloud and more for that. All of the systems management tools (thing used in production to detect and fix problems) should also be built in, or the cloud platform should be instrumented so deeply that third party tools can do the managing as well.
Now, these two categories are likely to converge, and then the discussion will just be which cloud platforms are more featureful and better. It’ll be like battling Java application servers.
I haven’t made one of my own “burger” stacks of all this in a long time, but I think (again, highly biased) the ones we use for PCF are pretty good:
In case you don’t know, working at Pivotal, I obviously have a stake in how all this turns out, so I’m biased on multiple angles of the above whether I want to be or not.
A good looking list from the press release:
Plan Flight (Travel and Transportation) addresses the major expense of all airlines — fuel — permitting pilots to view flight schedules, flight plans, and crew manifests ahead of time, report issues in-flight to ground crews, and make more informed decisions about discretionary fuel.
Passenger+ (Travel and Transportation) empowers flight crews to offer an unmatched level of personalized services to passengers in-flight – including special offers, re-booking, and baggage information.
Advise & Grow (Banking and Financial Markets) puts bankers on premise with their small business clients, with secure authorization to access client profiles and competitive analyses, gather analytics-driven insights to make personalized recommendations, and complete secure transactions.
Trusted Advice (Banking and Financial Markets) allows advisors to access and manage client portfolios, gain insight from powerful predictive analytics — in the client’s kitchen or at the local coffee shop, rather than the advisor’s office — with full ability to test recommendations with sophisticated modeling tools all the way to complete, secure transactions.
Retention (Insurance) empowers agents with access to customers’ profiles and history, including an analytics-driven retention risk score as well as smart alerts, reminders, and recommendations on next best steps and facilitation of key transactions like collection of e-signatures and premiums.
Case Advice (Government) addresses the issue of workload and support among caseworkers who are making critical decisions, one family or situation at a time, on the go. The solution adjusts case priorities based on real-time analytics-driven insights, and assesses risk based on predictive analysis.
Incident Aware (Government) converts an iPhone into a vital crime prevention asset, presenting law enforcement officers with real-time access to maps and video-feeds of incident locations; information about victim status, escalation risk, and crime history; and improved ability to call for back-up and supporting services.
Sales Assist (Retail) enables associates to connect with customer profiles, make suggestions based on previous purchases and current selections, check inventory, locate items in-store, and ship out-of-store items.
Pick & Pack (Retail) combines proximity-based technology with back-end inventory systems for transformed order fulfillment.
Expert Tech (Telecommunications) taps into native iOS capabilities including FaceTime for easy access to expertise and location services for route optimization to deliver superior on-site service, more effective issue resolution and productivity as well as improved customer satisfaction.
A few comments:
These are all for use by employees at businesses to help run the business, not consumers to run their lives. That’s a good way of thinking about what “enterprise” means for all you kids who didn’t grow up as enterprise developers and people.
Ever get your tires changed, deposit a check, or work with an airline agent? You notice how horrible the computers and software they use is? This IBM/Apple partnership (and others like it) is looking to rewrite and replace those abominations. Now, imagine how big that market is, globally. (Hint: every business in existence that uses computers or will soon, basically.) Massive.
Each of the above requires a lot of integration with backend data stores and customizations to work. Lots of consulting work. That’s IBM’s sweet spot, and Apple’s gap. A nice combination.
It’s notable that there’s not any health care apps in there. I wouldn’t read too much into that, but they’ll be needing that right quick. That market is too big and fucked IT-wise to ignore.
So, sure. Assuming they work, things are looking good from a press release perspective. We’ll see.
See also Apple’s side of the story which has, as you’d expect, much better visuals.
The new offerings bring IBM solutions around SoftLayer Infrastructure-as-a-Service and BlueMix to CSC customers, including integrating them with the CSC ServiceMesh Agility Platform. The agreement will bring ServiceMesh Agility Platform to the IBM Cloud Marketplace.
More:
CSC said the IBM alliance will help the company grab a piece of Gartner’s predicted $210 billion market for application services in 2014 and help continue to pivot the solution provider around as-a-Service solutions. With a focus on solutions for mobile, big data and analytics and cloud, CSC executives said the alliance will help the company continue to modernize client applications across a variety of cloud platforms.
That ServiceMesh acquisition seems to have been a good idea.
Also, I have a feeling “enterprise cloud” will be very different than “cloud cloud.” It seems more remote that they’re the same people and concerns. We’ll see.
In a story about Mirantis running on IBM SoftLayer:
Gauging the uptake of OpenStack in enterprises has been tricky, whether it’s deployed afresh or to replace existing Amazon EC2 or VMware installations. Interest in hiring OpenStack talent is growing, and vendors such as Red Hat are tying in OpenStack closely with their respective Linux distributions. But signs show that the average OpenStack installation is rather modest and OpenStack has struggled to find larger market share — possibly, as InfoWorld’s Dave Linthicum observed, due to its continued lack of robust networking features.
Hopefully company’s using OpenStack will start talking more, then we’ll have a fuller picture of it’s adoption, namely, in private cloud.
In our 451 usage surveys, OpenStack ranks high – second, next to VMware, see chart above – so it seems like there’s usage out there. Quoting from that TheInfoPro piece:
While 36% of respondents already have a cloud platform in production use, 35% will be selecting and deploying a cloud platform for the first time in the next two years or more, and it is not unreasonable to expect that some early adopters will switch horses as the race continues to evolve. As a direct result of its dominance in the enterprise workload virtualization market, and corresponding investment in licensing and expertise, VMware is usually guaranteed a place at the table. However, it is by no means guaranteed a leading position in the cloud platform race that is still very much in its early stages. – See more at: http://theinfopro.blogs.451research.com/index.php/2014/06/the-openstack-tipping-point-will-it-go-over-the-edge/#sthash.4WcArbgu.dpuf
One of the better summaries of enterprise OpenStack adoption
I spoke with a couple of reporters earlier this week on the partnerships between Google and VMware and Google and Citrix around supporting Windows XP on Chromebooks. VMware has $200 off Chromebook discount for business buyers, and Citrix has a discount as well. Both are deep into vying with each other around the Desktop-as-a-Service market and interested in dominating that market which is looking to be driven by a pretty simple need: providing a way to use Windows applications on non-Windows devices.
The role of Chromebooks in all of this is interesting: perhaps it’s the cheapest “non-Windows end-user device.” It hasn’t seen massive market-share, but has been growing quickly to something like 2-5%, to throw out a wild-guess driven broad range. (ABI and NPD have some recent Chromebook marketshare estimates as well.)
Amazon launched a DaaS offering recently as well, which I covered in a 451 report; VMware released their DaaS just a tad before Amazon; Citrix, of course, sells a DaaS platform to others who want to run it, and of course has its current virtual desktop empire.
Back to the press part! Both Kevin McLaughlin of CRN (his story) and Dan Kobialka of Talkin’ Cloud (his story) asked for my take on the VMware/Google partnership, and then on Citrix’s involvement. Here’s the amalgamation of my responses to them:
Last I saw somewhere in Twitter there’s something like a quarter of the market still running XP which is certainly significant. I’m not really sure how many customers would take advantage of switching over to DaaS: the time and expense to do so might be the same as just upgrading to Windows 7 depending on how grueling the process was.
When I look at VMware and Citrix (just announced) working with Chromebooks the impact is mostly about adding legitimacy to Chromebooks as a viable business tool. VMware’s partnership means that there’s one way to keep using Windows applications on Chromebooks, through Horizon via the Blast protocol. Citrix announced a similar partnership today as well. Both have a constellation of service provider partners who do Desktop-as-a-Service (VMware has it’s own DaaS as well), or enterprises could just use their own on-premise virtual desktop setups, which both vendors support as well.
I’m not sure how many Windows applications are out there, but there’s likely an uncountable amount ranging from older packaged software to custom written applications used inside the confines of corporate firewalls. Rewriting all of these applications to be pure HTML or native iOS and Android is sort of ludicrous at this point, so as things like BYOD and the spread of iOS and Android devices in the enterprise plays out, companies will need some way of accessing these Windows apps. Android and iOS have had the kind of virtual desktop support needed for awhile, and the Chromebook work that VMware and Citrix are doing here is making it so that Chromebooks can fit, technologically at least, into that corporate mix as well.
VMware and Citrix team-up with Google Chromebooks to run Windows apps – Press Pass
“Google Starbucks.” Really, with the way things are going in M&A land, I guess it wouldn’t be too shocking if that were more than a wifi promotion.
“This whole idea about coming from the outside and trying to sell something to the IT [department], I think, is starting to leave very fast,” Daher said. “Companies like ours, where we become an extension of a customer’s IT to support the business — that’s the approach, and we have to understand we are that business.”
Also in the piece: plenty if good thoughts in the evolving role and opportunity for VAR/channel types.
More hybrid cloud.
$1B annual run rate, 1,000+ vBlocks sold (cumulative?), with $1.3B investment, founded 2011.
More: How’s VCE been doin’?
