"Curiously enough, the only thing that went through the mind of the petunias as it fell was Oh no, not again. Many people have speculated that if we knew exactly why the bowl of petunias had thought that we would know a lot more about the Universe than we do now."
As most of you will know that is one of the most famous quotes from Douglas Adams Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy but why bring it up now?
I guess it is because having been a VMware partner in a previous life (at Enigmatec where we were instrumental - along with others of course - in getting them to offer up their VCenter API) I knew it was only a matter of time before people cried "foul" when Amazon started to stretch its wings.
Or so it would seem if you take Reuven Cohen's latest posting Amazon Crushes Ecosystem - Launches AWS Management Console at face value.
However I think we need to be careful not to rush to judgement on either Reuven's posting or Amazon's announcement. After all we were warned well in advance (well last October anyway) when Jeff Barr posted his Big Day for EC2 ... annoucement so why the sense of outrage?
I would strongly argue that AWS are still very partner friendly and that this is nothing more than the natural process of functional sedimentation enriching the ocean floor. It benefits all of us and it is up to companies like RightScale to stay one step ahead.
Google have been much maligned for trying to create a particular culture but who - like all of us - turned out to have feet of clay. Or - if you prefer a different analogy - flew too close to the Sun and disappointed us all by being YABC (Yet Another Big Company). So what?!
Fortunately Amazon have not indulged in the same "do no evil" hubristic nonsense but have instead simply got on with their job - creating real market momentum and excitement around Cloud Computing. This is business not moral philosophy that we are talking about after all.
We should do the same. Our job? To continue to push the boundaries, of course. A great example IMHO is CohesiveFT. Their VPN-Cubed product is exactly the kind of innovation that AWS are looking for. Maybe - who knows - Werner, aka Victor Kiam, will like VPN-Cubed so much he buys their company. I don't know but it will be interesting to re-read this posting in 6 months time ...
Oh and by the way - better late than never - Happy New Year.
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