Before Docker, Inc., began making headlines with its namesake container software, it was a platform as a service (PaaS) provider known as “dotCloud.” Thanks to Docker’s success, though, the company is abandoning its roots and selling its dotCloud platform to the German firm cloudControl GmbH, which is hoping to expand in the US.

Docker’s containerization technology began life as an internal open-source project at dotCloud, where it was developed atop various other open-source packages with the help of vendors like Red Hat, Inc.. When Docker took off, the company decided to put it on the back burner. It reincorporated as Docker, Inc., last October.

Docker has been on a roll ever since, receiving $15 million in cash from Silicon Valley investors who are convinced it’s about to grab the batton from traditional virtualization, especially for cloud application workloads.

That has made dotCloud the odd man out. Docker’s Andrew Rothfusz admitted as much when he said that, while the PaaS platform is still ticking, “all new platform engineering effort” has gone into Docker.

For the small number of users who do care about dotCloud, Rothfusz explained that it will continue as a standalone product in the short term, although cloudControl is planning to bring users into its own fold at a later date. The German firm has its own “next-generation” PaaS platform, which Rothfusz assures customers is better than dotCloud itself.

What he didn’t say is that dotCloud users might be forced to make some changes to their apps if they’re to keep running on cloudControl. They’ll have time to prepare, though – cloudControl’s PaaS won’t be available in the US until early 2015, with existing dotCloud customers likely to be migrated sometime in the second quarter.

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