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This is a good move for CoreOS and Red Hat, I think. I've thought for a while that the platform market would shake out and be left with one and at most two win

This is a good move for CoreOS and Red Hat, I think. I've thought for a while that the platform market would shake out and be left with one and at most two winners. Previously we saw Deis fold into Microsoft and now CoreOS into Red Hat. I expect that Docker will run independently for another few years before their investors realise it's time to push for an acquisition exit, but it's unclear by whom. I figure Heptio will go to one of Red Hat, Google or Microsoft. As for CoreOS's technologies, my guess is that Red Hat will be gently herding Tectonic and Container Linux users to OpenShift and RHEL respectively. About the only products I expect to survive fully intact would be Quay and etcd. Disclosure: I work for Pivotal, we compete with Red Hat and Docker. So read my remarks with whatever mix of skepticism and mirth you think is appropriate.

politician 9y ago
I agree that this is a good move by Red Hat to position themselves with rkt and Quay ahead of Docker going to Microsoft (who will pay a premium to try to put this genie back into the bottle) Given their self-inflicted XHR debacle that dethroned Office, I just don't see Microsoft passing up this opportunity. Google, on the other hand, doesn't need Docker to plug any holes in their go to market unless it's a blocking play. However, Docker is already cozy with Microsoft, so I don't see a Google acquisition going anywhere.
- zapita 9y ago
  > this is a good move by Red Hat to position themselves with rkt Red Hat does not give a damn about rkt. They care about Kubernetes, specifically establishing and consolidating a dominant position in upstream kubernetes development. CoreOS helps them do that. rkt on the other hand is a dead project and completely useless to Red Hat. > Google, on the other hand, doesn't need Docker to plug any holes in their go to market unless it's a blocking play. Google has a massive hole in their go to market. They have no clue how to sell to enterprises, and because of that they are falling behind AWS and Microsoft in the cloud market. However you're right that it would take much more than a Docker to plug that hole. Honestly if I were Google I would try to buy Red Hat, or an even larger enterprise vendor like SAP or Oracle. Not only would they be buying the enterprise distribution they lack, but they would also secure a major customer for their own infrastructure and keep up with the economies of scale AMZN and MSFT are building up. But I don't know that they will develop the humility to admit that they need that - and even if they do there's no guarantee that the integration would work... Culturally they are worlds apart. EDIT: another interesting acquisition target for Google Cloud would be Vmware. Diane Greene founded it, then got fired by EMC post-acquisition, something I am betting she still holds a grudge over. Now she runs Google Cloud. If I'm her, I like the idea of buying the place and savoring a triumphal Steve Jobs takeover moment. I don't know to what extent this is complicated by this week's announcement of a Vmware/Dell reverse merger. Maybe they buy the whole thing? But then would Michael Dell want to run this new mega-Cloud group? And how does that play with Diane's ambitions? This might bool down to whether Diane likes the idea of working for Michael Dell. He has vastly more go-to-market experience which is what matters most in their position. I really think there should be an HBO Silicon Valley - Enterprise spinoff :-)
  - r0fls 9y ago
    I think Google being able to buy Oracle is a bit of a stretch at this point. Oracle is 1/4 the market cap of Google. So, it seems unlikely they would have the capital available.
    - zapita 9y ago
      You are right. I was extrapolating future scenarios where Oracle or SAP trip up in their race to the Cloud, causing a major drop in their stock. Honestly it's a pretty realistic scenario, it's not a secret that the Dell, HPE, SAP and Oracles of the world have serious challenges ahead of them. One of them is bound to hit an attractive price, and for a bold and deep-pocketed suitor to act on it. The question is when?
      - manishjhawar 9y ago
        And Who?
  - kakwa_ 9y ago
    Frankly, I'm not sure why Google would acquire RedHat, SAP or Oracle. I'm not sure what will be gain from that. Google probably doesn't care about the softwares these companies provides as it has its own internal alternatives/derivative and Google is not really a software vendor, so it's a bit outside of their core business. What would make more sense in my opinion would be for Google to have a partnership with a big Enterprise player (or several in fact) and promote it loudly.
    - zapita 9y ago
      > Frankly, I'm not sure why Google would acquire RedHat, SAP or Oracle. Enterprise distribution. Without significant enterprise revenue, Google Cloud will never catch up to AWS and Azure. Nobody can beat Google on technology, but technology alone cannot solve this. > I'm not sure what will be gain from that. Google probably doesn't care about the softwares these companies provides as it has its own internal alternatives/derivative and Google is not really a software vendor, so it's a bit outside of their core business. Google Cloud absolutely is a software vendor. They sell cloud services which compete directly with traditional enterprise software. Their services are superior in many ways, but enterprise adoption is definitely not one of them. That is the problem they could solve by buying an enterprise-savvy competitor. As a bonus, these traditional software vendors are all racing to deploy cloud versions of their software. Because they have massive install bases, they can drive enterprise workloads to the cloud of their choice. What would make more sense in my opinion would be for Google to have a partnership with a big Enterprise player (or several in fact) and promote it loudly. They are already partnering aggressively, just like their competitors. I think they announced exactly this with SAP recently. But partnerships have their limits. Most vendors will not allow themselves to grow too dependent on their main competitors. If they did, they would lose all leverage in the deal, and slowly starve as Big Cloud grabs all the margins. And then we're back to the acquisition scenario.
- acoard 9y ago
  >Given their self-inflicted XHR debacle that dethroned Office, Do you mean how Google used XHR (ajax) for Google Docs to dethrone Microsoft Office? Or something else I'm missing?
smoyer 9y ago
This sounds pretty logical ... the other big player is probably Oracle who will end up purchasing Pivotal, Rackspace, ...
thedevopsguy 9y ago
Hadn't thought of it from this angle. Docker's only chance of survival is to have a cross platform container. Something that works on Windows and Linux. Perhaps Docker's only play is to fold into Microsoft to achieve a cross platform solution. Microsoft does have Brendan Burns now.
- zapita 9y ago
  Didn't Docker announce Windows support years ago?
  - abakker 9y ago
    Yep = https://www.docker.com/docker-windows https://www.docker.com/docker-windows
  - thedevopsguy 9y ago
    My comment wasn't too clear. I'm not talking about just running docker cli on Windows or using windows 10 containers. Am yet to see a coherent story on how to write say a Java application containerize it, deploy it on Windows and Linux without having dealing with differences in each OS container solution. If there is, I'd like to learn about it.

politician 9y ago

I agree that this is a good move by Red Hat to position themselves with rkt and Quay ahead of Docker going to Microsoft (who will pay a premium to try to put this genie back into the bottle) Given their self-inflicted XHR debacle that dethroned Office, I just don't see Microsoft passing up this opportunity. Google, on the other hand, doesn't need Docker to plug any holes in their go to market unless it's a blocking play. However, Docker is already cozy with Microsoft, so I don't see a Google acquisition going anywhere.

zapita 9y ago
> this is a good move by Red Hat to position themselves with rkt Red Hat does not give a damn about rkt. They care about Kubernetes, specifically establishing and consolidating a dominant position in upstream kubernetes development. CoreOS helps them do that. rkt on the other hand is a dead project and completely useless to Red Hat. > Google, on the other hand, doesn't need Docker to plug any holes in their go to market unless it's a blocking play. Google has a massive hole in their go to market. They have no clue how to sell to enterprises, and because of that they are falling behind AWS and Microsoft in the cloud market. However you're right that it would take much more than a Docker to plug that hole. Honestly if I were Google I would try to buy Red Hat, or an even larger enterprise vendor like SAP or Oracle. Not only would they be buying the enterprise distribution they lack, but they would also secure a major customer for their own infrastructure and keep up with the economies of scale AMZN and MSFT are building up. But I don't know that they will develop the humility to admit that they need that - and even if they do there's no guarantee that the integration would work... Culturally they are worlds apart. EDIT: another interesting acquisition target for Google Cloud would be Vmware. Diane Greene founded it, then got fired by EMC post-acquisition, something I am betting she still holds a grudge over. Now she runs Google Cloud. If I'm her, I like the idea of buying the place and savoring a triumphal Steve Jobs takeover moment. I don't know to what extent this is complicated by this week's announcement of a Vmware/Dell reverse merger. Maybe they buy the whole thing? But then would Michael Dell want to run this new mega-Cloud group? And how does that play with Diane's ambitions? This might bool down to whether Diane likes the idea of working for Michael Dell. He has vastly more go-to-market experience which is what matters most in their position. I really think there should be an HBO Silicon Valley - Enterprise spinoff :-)
- r0fls 9y ago
  I think Google being able to buy Oracle is a bit of a stretch at this point. Oracle is 1/4 the market cap of Google. So, it seems unlikely they would have the capital available.
  - zapita 9y ago
    You are right. I was extrapolating future scenarios where Oracle or SAP trip up in their race to the Cloud, causing a major drop in their stock. Honestly it's a pretty realistic scenario, it's not a secret that the Dell, HPE, SAP and Oracles of the world have serious challenges ahead of them. One of them is bound to hit an attractive price, and for a bold and deep-pocketed suitor to act on it. The question is when?
    - manishjhawar 9y ago
      And Who?
- kakwa_ 9y ago
  Frankly, I'm not sure why Google would acquire RedHat, SAP or Oracle. I'm not sure what will be gain from that. Google probably doesn't care about the softwares these companies provides as it has its own internal alternatives/derivative and Google is not really a software vendor, so it's a bit outside of their core business. What would make more sense in my opinion would be for Google to have a partnership with a big Enterprise player (or several in fact) and promote it loudly.
  - zapita 9y ago
    > Frankly, I'm not sure why Google would acquire RedHat, SAP or Oracle. Enterprise distribution. Without significant enterprise revenue, Google Cloud will never catch up to AWS and Azure. Nobody can beat Google on technology, but technology alone cannot solve this. > I'm not sure what will be gain from that. Google probably doesn't care about the softwares these companies provides as it has its own internal alternatives/derivative and Google is not really a software vendor, so it's a bit outside of their core business. Google Cloud absolutely is a software vendor. They sell cloud services which compete directly with traditional enterprise software. Their services are superior in many ways, but enterprise adoption is definitely not one of them. That is the problem they could solve by buying an enterprise-savvy competitor. As a bonus, these traditional software vendors are all racing to deploy cloud versions of their software. Because they have massive install bases, they can drive enterprise workloads to the cloud of their choice. What would make more sense in my opinion would be for Google to have a partnership with a big Enterprise player (or several in fact) and promote it loudly. They are already partnering aggressively, just like their competitors. I think they announced exactly this with SAP recently. But partnerships have their limits. Most vendors will not allow themselves to grow too dependent on their main competitors. If they did, they would lose all leverage in the deal, and slowly starve as Big Cloud grabs all the margins. And then we're back to the acquisition scenario.
acoard 9y ago
>Given their self-inflicted XHR debacle that dethroned Office, Do you mean how Google used XHR (ajax) for Google Docs to dethrone Microsoft Office? Or something else I'm missing?

smoyer 9y ago

This sounds pretty logical ... the other big player is probably Oracle who will end up purchasing Pivotal, Rackspace, ...

thedevopsguy 9y ago

Hadn't thought of it from this angle. Docker's only chance of survival is to have a cross platform container. Something that works on Windows and Linux. Perhaps Docker's only play is to fold into Microsoft to achieve a cross platform solution. Microsoft does have Brendan Burns now.

zapita 9y ago
Didn't Docker announce Windows support years ago?
- abakker 9y ago
  Yep = https://www.docker.com/docker-windows https://www.docker.com/docker-windows
- thedevopsguy 9y ago
  My comment wasn't too clear. I'm not talking about just running docker cli on Windows or using windows 10 containers. Am yet to see a coherent story on how to write say a Java application containerize it, deploy it on Windows and Linux without having dealing with differences in each OS container solution. If there is, I'd like to learn about it.