Maritz: vendors lack innovation

Virtualisation leader pays tribute to work of smaller software developers

Paul Maritz: We want to be relevant in the emerging cloud era

VMware’s boss launched an attack on “traditional vendors” at its partner conference, arguing that it will be software developers that set the pace of innovation during the cloud era.

Speaking at VMworld in Copenhagen, chief executive Paul Maritz paid tribute to the work open-source software developers are doing in creating new enterprise cloud applications.

“Software developers like to focus on what is important to them and these new open-source frameworks are the basis of what we think will [drive] new enterprise application development going forward,” he said.

As a result, the software developer channel is one with which VMware is increasingly aligned, following on from its acquisition of open-source vendor SpringSource last year.

“A lot of interesting stuff is no longer in the realm of the traditional vendors and we want to be relevant in the emerging cloud era,” said Maritz. “We are doing everything to position ourselves as a winner in this space.”

However, Maritz was keen to play down suggestions that the firm’s decision to throw its weight behind the developer channel was a dig at software giant Microsoft.

“This is us trying to take advantage of fundamental forces at work in the industry,” he said.

“This is where the new innovation will come from and we are trying to tap into those sources of innovation.

“We have nothing against .NET [Microsoft developer] applications, which a lot of our customers choose to deploy in virtual machines,” he added.

Richard Flanders, product marketing director at VMware partner MTI Europe, said: “It is quite possible that specific developers who focus on particular verticals and applications will become more important in this space as the cloud delivery models and platforms mature.”