Docker part 4: Microsoft CAN'T ignore it. Aux armes, citoyens!

Wide open field

It's clear that Microsoft needs to get out in front of this thing. If you can't kill your enemies, you co-opt them. Embrace them and bring them into the fold. Microsoft has. VMware has. Red Hat has, and so have dozens of others.

The battle is on now to influence the direction of the fledgling company. None of the majors want Docker to evolve into a tech titan that could rival them, or whose future innovations might annul yet more of their value proposition. The idea that one of their rivals might gobble up Docker – or absorb it into their ecosystem – is also unappealing, but perhaps less so than the emergence of a new superpower.

Worst of all, Docker is the first thing in quite some time that might just give the hoi polloi a say in IT. The key to Docker isn't the containerization tech, it's the app-store like nature of application deployment it allows. If it becomes the de facto means of doing so, then anyone who isn't on board is pretty screwed.

Docker isn't the only containerization technology in town. Development on LXC certainly didn't stop when Docker went off to do its own thing. There certainly are other container projects, and where there is the hint of success to be had you can bet there are an unlimited number of Silicon Valley startups in stealth mode with a "newer, better Docker" just hoping for their cash cow to arrive.

If Docker is to succeed it will not be through feature development and driving the technology. Docker needs to grow an ecosystem around the product yesterday and it needs to expand its brand recognition far and wide. There is a limited time window here. All those companies that claim to be on board with Docker can just as easily try to fork the code and abscond with the win by creating communities of their own around their own brand. Docker got the tech right, but they're playing for all the marbles now. Like it or not, they're now a minor house in Silicon Valley's Game of Thrones.

Every piece of advice they receive will come with a hidden agenda. Every partnership will be a veiled attempt at storming their castle and taking all their gold. Every hand of friendship conceals a dagger and every smile hides deception.

Docker has the engineering goods. They've got the hype and the momentum. A community is accreting. Can Docker's executives transition from the role of driving technical excellence to fending off the hounds and planning 12 steps ahead? Can they nurture and guide a diverse and fickle community without losing control over their product?

I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords sincerely hope so. I hope that with Docker "execution" means a path to the emergence of a new power in our industry, and not the metaphorical Red Wedding. Good luck to them. ®

Want more?

Read the first three parts of this four-part series:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3