Big Purchases, Big Dreams

Yesterday we heard about several purchases within the industry: Microsoft’s acquisition of LinkedIn, Symantec’s purchase of Blue Coat, and VMware’s acquisition of Arkin. These are not small purchases. Once integrated, they start the journey to bigger goals and dreams. As some put it on Twitter, “It is a big day in IT.” I would agree. What …

Make vSphere Free. Can VMware Sell Only Support?

Last month, I suggested that VMware could help itself and its customers by opening up. How about if it transformed completely? Could VMware survive if vSphere were free and it only charged for support? What if VMware embraced the idea that hypervisors are a commodity and focused on revenue from management and automation products? What if vSphere didn’t …

Has AWS Peaked?

There can be no real arguing against the fact that Amazon Web Services reigns supreme with regard to public cloud. Its recently announced quarterly results show that AWS is not only gaining revenue, but actually making a “small” surplus. OK, maybe not so small: a tad over half a billion dollars, compared to a $57 million loss for the same quarter in 2015. What …

The New OpenStack: Collaboration

At this year’s OpenStack Summit in Austin, Texas, the message was clear. OpenStack needs to pivot from a science experiment to a production system. Even though this is happening, it has been happening slowly. Some would argue that it has been achieved for the likes of PayPal and other extremely large institutions, such as AT&T. However, running, configuring, and …