Re:My second year without a job
by ghaff on Sunday December 08, 2024 @11:28AM
(#42357987)
Yeah, Red Hat put a fair bit of money and investment into a direct VMware takeout using oVirt/RHV. Pretty much went nowhere. There's presumably some money int here post-Broadcom acquisition but Red Hat is mostly betting on Kubevirt and OpenShift. Some (presumably smaller-scale) customers will prefer more of a like-to-like lower-cost replacement but personally I wouldn't bet on it as a business.
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Yeah, my feeling is that if you're a billion dollar business with associated high overheads, then a few million is not worth it. If you're a zero dollar start-up with focus and a tolerance for selling boring software to boring companies, then there's money in it.
I still remember something someone from IBM told me during my prior analyst gig. Don't remember the specific but something to do with Linux and Power I think. Basically, he said that if it's not a billion dollar opportunity it's not worth all the costs and distractions up and down the line to pursue.
You're right that the million dollar opportunity is a lot more interesting for a startup. Of course, it's also going to be a lot harder for that startup to displace VMware (which the potential customer probably is using). I'm not sure going after those crumbs is a terrible idea but there are already other option like Xen too.