In the IaaS cloud market, who will win between AWS, VMware, Hyper V and OpenStack?

All three have their respective strengths. VMware is the undisputed leader in virtualization and more broadly in on-premise infrastructure software. So far they have little to show when it comes to public clouds. OpenStack has huge popularity and the backing of legacy IT vendors. They are fighting the public cloud and the private cloud battle at the same time. Amazon Web Services are overwhelming leaders in public cloud, an industry that is growing fast. AWS hasn’t done much with large enterprises or on-premise environments. They do have Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), Direct Connect (DC), and the partnership with Eucalyptus.

But it’s not as if these vendors are operating in a vacuum. As VMware cloud executive Matthew Lodge notes, both AWS and VMware bring existing fan bases to the cloud party. VMware has an enviable foothold with enterprise IT and AWS owns developers. OpenStack has undoubted enthusiasm around the project from vendors but still lacks many public clouds built on its technology. Hyper V is similar to VMware but owned by Microsoft.

VMware has the “power base” with enterprises, and AWS has the same with developers. Hyper V has less base with enterprises. Eucalyptus ties the enterprise into the power of AWS through its API, and OpenStack has a great deal of momentum from vendors who want it to succeed against incumbent power bases.