VMware: vCloud Hybrid Service 'can be seen as a competitive threat' to partners

Colt, the firm's sole European data centre partner, is likely to be most affected by vCloud Hybrid Service's rollout in Europe

VMware's vCloud Hybrid Service "can be seen as a competitive threat" to many of the virtualisation firm's partners, according to Bill Fathers, senior vice president and general manager, hybrid cloud services business unit at VMware.

Fathers, who was pressed on the matter during a press Q&A at VMworld Europe 2013 in Barcelona, did not go as far as stating that the service is intended to directly compete with its partners but suggested that the firm's partners are not satisfied with its latest offering.

"Launching a competitive service has caused a few conversations with our partners, so we're learning a great deal in doing this for ourselves," he said.

He stated that the technology would be available for its partners to use, and suggested that both VMware and its partners' solutions could both be available on the market as long as they can be differentiated.

"Yes, it can be seen as a competitive threat [to VMware partners] but there is a vast space for [the partners] to differentiate themselves in different ways," he said.

VMware's vCloud Hybrid Service is available in the US, and at VMworld Europe, the firm announced that this would be extended to Europe, with the first data centre to be located in Slough, in the UK.

"The UK represents one of the largest IT markets in Europe, and VMware is committed to providing customers with a local, in-country public cloud which will enable them to extend their current data centres and deploy new cloud-native applications," Fathers said.

Currently, VMware customers can extend and migrate their own virtualised environment to a VMware partner's data centre.

In Europe, IT services firm Colt is the sole partner with a VMware vCloud Datacentre Services offering, and it could be most affected by the announcement.

VMware said it would offer a private beta of the vCloud Hybrid Service in the UK in Q4, with the tool being made generally available in the first quarter of 2014.