Are You vConfused?

Naturally, I watched with interest yesterday’s VMware announcement about a new hybrid cloud service, but its left me stymied.  I’m scratching my head:  is their VMware-branded service something they run, or a partner play?  Forrester analyst James Staten described it as “more a statement of intention than a true unveiling,” and others in the press added the “sort of” caveat as well.  Meanwhile, Chris Wolfe at Gartner feels that this service will be delivered by a “VMware-hosted offering”.

Contributing to the confusion are the VMware statements about providing customers with “the benefits of the public cloud” countered with the statement that when customers are ready they can “select the VMware Service Provider that meets your specific requirements, with a choice of hundreds of the best brands in IaaS.”

So, we were wondering if some of you out there might be able to help clarify things.  We’d appreciate it if you could in the comments section below: is VMware going to operate a real public cloud somewhere in the future?  Or is this a way to gussy up the offerings of others?

Did you understand the news – or were you left feeling a bit vConfused as well?