Surprise! VMware will join OpenStack
Just in time for VMworld, VMware is about to join the OpenStack Foundation as a Gold member, along with Intel and NEC, according to a post on the OpenStack Foundation Wiki. The applications for membership are on the agenda of the August 28 OpenStack Foundation meeting.
Context & Ripple Effects
VMware's application lands at a deliberately charged moment: the OpenStack Foundation board takes up the Gold membership bids from VMware, Intel and NEC at its August 28 meeting, days before VMware's own VMworld conference opens. Joining the open-source cloud project puts the company inside the tent of the effort most often positioned as the counterweight to its vSphere-centric data center business.
The move also arrives mid-leadership transition — Paul Maritz stepped down as VMware CEO in July 2012, with EMC COO Pat Gelsinger taking over — so the OpenStack bid will be one of the first strategic signals read under the new regime. Intel's application pairs the world's dominant server chip supplier with the dominant hypervisor vendor, while NEC adds a large systems OEM to the roster.
First-order effects
- If approved on August 28, VMware, Intel and NEC each gain Gold-member standing and a formal voice in OpenStack Foundation governance, shaping a project whose deployments compete directly with VMware's core vSphere franchise.
- VMworld attendees will hear VMware argue both sides at once — defending its proprietary stack on the show floor while holding membership in the leading open alternative.
Second-order effects
- Existing OpenStack contributors and members now have to decide whether VMware's presence legitimizes the platform for conservative enterprises or risks steering its roadmap toward vSphere interoperability on VMware's terms.
- Rival virtualization and cloud vendors face pressure to make their own OpenStack commitments more visible, since abstaining now reads as ceding the open-cloud narrative to VMware, Intel and NEC.
Third-order effects
- The pattern — an incumbent infrastructure vendor buying influence inside the open project aimed at it — points toward open-source cloud governance becoming a contested arena where proprietary players shape standards rather than fight them from outside.
- For enterprises, the boundary between 'VMware shop' and 'OpenStack shop' blurs, pushing procurement toward hybrid stacks where the hypervisor incumbent and the open controller coexist by design.
The trend: Enterprise infrastructure incumbents are joining the open-source cloud projects built against them, trading outside opposition for inside influence over the standard.