Solution Providers Ready To Work With VMware's New Cloud Infrastructure

its own public cloud infrastructure-as-a-service

Ron Dupler, the CEO of GreenPages, which VMware named as its Solution Provider of The Year in February 2011, said that with its own cloud infrastructure, VMware will spur on solution providers who have been held back by a lack of attention from other cloud service providers, such as Amazon, Microsoft and AT&T.

Dupler said VMware has moved aggressively to take a leadership role in cloud services, with recent acquisitions of software-defined networking company Nicera and of DynamicOPs, which manages multiple hypervisors in the cloud.

And with its cloud infrastructure initiative, called Project Zephyr, VMware will be able to offer solution providers a robust cloud service.

“It’s been very clear ... that VMware is trying to be a catalyst for solution providers to work more aggressively in the cloud,” Dupler said. “This is going to get the solution providers market to work more aggressively to offer VMware cloud solutions. VMware is setting the pace on this. The market demands it."

[Related: This Week In The Cloud: Savvis Buys Ciber, AppFog Teams With Rackspace ]

VMware’s move puts it up against service providers that have not done enough to make their cloud services available for solution providers, Dupler said.

"The service providers have not figured out how to engage with the cloud,” Dupler said. “VMware has been trying hard to engage with the cloud. The others didn’t have an effective channel strategy."

Dupler also said VMware’s vCloud program, which was designed to foster collaboration between solution providers and service providers, has not gained traction with the channel, largely due to service provider inertia.

”The vCloud program has not formulated an effective channel cloud strategy,” he said.

Other cloud solution providers who haven’t as of yet worked with VMware cloud services said they would be interested in doing so.

“Anything VMware does will have a big impact in the cloud services market, especially for enterprise customers” said Tom Lounibos, CEO of Soasta, a Mountain View, Calif.-based supplier of cloud-based testing services for Web and mobile applications.

“If true, this [Project Zephyr] would be viewed as a very logical extension to their current cloud offerings and would be well received," Lounibos added. "It would add more cloud capacity, which would be warmly welcomed by SOASTA. We would be the first in line for their cloud services.”

Eric Berridge, co-founder and principal of Bluewolf, which provides cloud-enabled customer lifecycle consulting, managed and technology staffing services, took a similar position.

“The market needs more public cloud services, not fewer, so this is great news,” said Berridge. “Innovation in the public clouds will accelerate as new players enter the market, and yes, we would certainly consider using it.”

PUBLISHED AUG. 2, 2012

This story was modified Aug. 3, 2012, at 10:42 a.m. PST, to clarify Dupler's statement regarding VMware's vCloud channel program.