Why competition in the cloud market means innovation for customers

Everywhere we look, the world is going through digital transformation. It doesn’t matter if in the private or public sector, at school, at work or in the home – the effects of digitisation are all around us. Cloud native companies, such as Uber, Amazon and Tesla, have harnessed increasingly maturing technology rapidly to disrupt established markets and upend existing players.

For the latter, the race is on to adapt and respond, and innovate. It can be a challenge – as a report we wrote with Cass Business School stated, many organisations don’t have a problem with coming up with new ideas; the issue is being able to execute them effectively. To do that requires a variety of factors to be in place, one of which is having the right infrastructure. In the era of digital transformation, that means cloud computing. 

To outsiders, it’s perhaps therefore a bit odd that, rather than one perfect environment for everything, we have a situation where we’re seeing increasing numbers of specialist clouds coming to market across Europe, Middle East and Africa. That could be public clouds with huge scale and presence, ideal for end-user interfaces, or private clouds to test in a secure environment.

At VMware, we’re harnessing that with the VMware Cloud Provider Program, to support partners drive public and hybrid cloud success by being able to access VMware products on a Software-as-a-Service model. We currently have 2,500 Service Providers registered in the EMEA region, testament to the choice we believe there should be in the market to serve organizations on the front line.

But why is there so much choice in the market? Surely the ideal would be for one cloud to do everything. The fact is, as the cloud market has matured, so too have the digital demands of enterprises. To meet those needs requires a vast array of applications to deliver the services and experiences users are looking for.

Those applications, whether traditional, cloud native or a hybrid, must be able to move freely and securely across infrastructure to where they’re needed, from datacentre to cloud, to edge, to device and into the hands of users – and back again.

No one cloud can do that. That’s why the average business today uses eight clouds and expects it to increase to 10 in the near future. This multi-cloud approach is now mandatory for those with legacy IT assets wanting to transform their operations.

A complex challenge or an opportunity for customers?

There’s no doubt that having to manage multiple environments puts a strain on a company’s resources. It requires different skills, tools and vendors, which all, in turn, need managing. That’s why VMware supports customers to have a consistent operating model and infrastructure – we’re aiming to be the common denominator in a world of multiple environments and requirements.

And it’s only going to get more complex. It’s a natural reaction to the requirements of transforming legacy architecture – enterprises have to understand what they are trying to achieve, the applications that are going to help them do that, and the environments they need accordingly.

Those applications can’t all be transformed and moved into the cloud, either. Some will have to be replaced completely with cloud native apps; others have to remain on-premises; yet others can be ‘lifted and shifted’ into the cloud. This is made possible by VMware Cloud on AWS, which allows organisations to extend on-premises vSphere environments to the AWS Cloud.

To be honest, I believe that this is a good thing, despite the complexity for customers. Why? Because more environments and providers means more opportunity for customers to choose and stay free.

Being kept honest by the competition

This sort of crowded market keeps us honest – if you are the runaway leader, it’s impossible to stop complacency creeping in. Look at any sport. The greatest teams have their moment, and then they fade. It’s not something they can stop, and they can guard against it all they want, but any organisation that dominates their field will slip at some point.

This competition means pricing products realistically against the market, innovating and evolving services to add value to customers, such as deploying new business models. In other words, pushing to be better than the competition. The net result is that customers get products and services that constantly break the limits of what’s possible.

Without competition, innovation slows down, there isn’t the pressure on prices, there’s less choice for customers. When that happens, customers can be stuck with, at most, the best of a select few, as opposed to truly a best in class solution for that particular need.

That’s why I believe that a strong selection of different providers, all committed to innovating and delivering the best possible product for their specialism, is a huge opportunity for customers. Those customers can use these environments to truly get the most out of their applications.

A balance between choice and management

Ultimately, it’s a balance between great choice and the ability to manage it optimally without draining internal resources. That’s what customers need, and that’s why we’ve invested so heavily in our VCPP programme.

Being able to offer our customers the widest range of solutions for their requirements is critical, as is having the tools to manage those environments in a simple manner. As I said before, multi-cloud is a fact of life for any business wanting to transform. There are multiple ways or journeys to achieve that goal, and we’re committed to working with our partners to make it as smooth as possible for our customers.