Is the cloud kicking your butt? It's certainly kicking Mike DiPetrillo from VMware. Mike is one of the very few people from VMware who has been writing on cloud in the past. Yes, they have info at conferences but in terms of conversation VMware has been whispering.

Mike (pictured left) put out a post over the weekend which revealed that since the 1st of January this year he has been the "global cloud architect for VMware". Don't misunderstand this, Mike has not become a coder and is sweating lines of code in R&D these days. What this means is that Mike is the "how to put it all together" and make this work guy that customers and partners can talk to. Of course there are others involved too (he is not flying solo on one of the 3 key pillars in VMware's platform) but he is playing a pivotal outward facing role.

The reason why I think this is so great is that Mike has shown himself to be a good outward bound communicator, sharing his knowledge and experience. This is great for us people who are keen on the VMware story and capabilities around cloud.

Go and have a read of Mike's post. He details out 4 observations on his role so far. They are:

1. Cloud means 1,000 different things to 1,000 different people.
   
2. Everyone wants cloud today.
   
3. No one trusts external clouds and yet everyone wants to use them.
   
4. Absolutely everyone is ignorant on cloud.
   

I certainly agree with the first two.

I sort of agree with the third one but I would colour it by saying people are distrusting of clouds that are internet based as opposed to external but accessed via private networks.

The third one made me laugh. I know its hopefully tongue in cheek but I don't think everyone is ignorant, but there is a lot of education to do. Mike says "Really there are only about 20 people in the world right now that truly “get it”. Well, maybe more than that but not many more. Some people pretend they know which actually works pretty well." I would love to see who is on his list of 20 so I can track and digest everything they say whilst ignoring everyone else who is just pretdending!

Rodos