Windows' dominance won't translate to cloud, says EMC

Microsoft's stranglehold on business productivity software and operating systems would not translate into a leading market share of infrastructure as a service through its Azure platform, said David Webster, EMC's president of Australia and New Zealand, at EMC's Inform event in Darling Harbour, Sydney.

"The journey to the private cloud is off the back of a high adoption rate of VMware in Australia as a virtualisation platform," said Webster (pictured).

"We're seeing a fundamental shift in infrastructure and capability that will open up the unlocking of the stack. We are changing from virtual stacks that are lockable to virtual infrastructures that give the customer choice, flexibility and control," he said.

Customers and service providers could still run Microsoft software on EMC, Cisco and VMware's Virtual Computing Environment (VCE) technology instead of Microsoft's own Azure platform, said Webster.

Webster pointed to global integrator CSC, which is running Microsoft's Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS) on a vBlock, the consolidated networking, storage and compute platform sold by the VCE alliance.

Telstra, Alphawest, Macquarie Telecom and Melbourne IT had invested in VCE technology to run their private clouds, said Webster. Telstra also runs Microsoft BPOS in its T-Suite hosted application platform.

Microsoft was lagging behind VMware's lead in virtualisation, which would affect its ability to win customers for its HyperV virtualisation software and accordingly the establishment of private clouds.

"I think Microsoft is trying to work out how to play in a marketplace that is underway. This marketplace has been led by VMware for the past five years.

"Most customers in Australia are not thinking server virtualisation and hypervisors, they're thinking management and automation and sophisticated use of virtual environments.

"There is only one company driving that agenda, and that is VMware. They are a long way ahead. I'm not sure what Microsoft's strategy is, but it's catch-up," said Webster.