As the lines between proprietary and open-source continue to blur in the cloud services area of the tech market, some of the largest companies in the business are learning to reach out to the open-source community for reasons beyond simple architecture.

José Miguel Parrella Romero, open-source product management at Microsoft Azure, joined Stu Miniman (@stu) and Brian Gracely (@bgracely), cohosts of theCUBE, from the SiliconANGLE Media team, at the Red Hat Summit in San Francisco, sharing details on Microsoft’s approach to open-source, its incorporation into its cloud services and some of the other possibilities it is considering in the field.

Joining the open-source

As noted by the cohosts, the presence of Microsoft at a Linux conference has been raising some eyebrows, but Microsoft is making moves to smooth over ruffled feathers, including give-aways of Microsoft-branded penguin toys. Parrella-Romero explained that Microsoft sees open-source as an important component, particularly for attempting to improve the perception of Azure cloud services in terms of an open and hybrid potential.

“We have a very comprehensive approach to open-source,” he said, moving past Azure to note its usage in dashboard container services and other sectors. “It’s really exciting times, but participating at Red Hat Summit has been critical in anticipating what our customers want.”

In addition to Red Hat’s capabilities, other open-source focuses are being examined by Microsoft. “There are areas where we truly believe that open-source R is going to be [critical],” Parrella-Romero noted, before sharing details on a template for the OpenShift Platform-as-a-Service, intended for deployment in Azure and Red Hat Linux.

Moving back to focus on Azure, Parrella-Romero gave some information on Microsoft’s rollout of the service in China, as well as the excitement being stimulated by virtual machines on the cloud service.

Participate and learn

Parrella-Romero felt that engaging with the community had been instrumental in allowing Microsoft to make these advancements. “Participating and committing to that participation has been critical, I think,” he said. “Communicating and openly discussing our approach to open-source has been important … but [helping customers understand it] has been important as well.”

Additionally “the number of customers in containers has exploded … [and] our portfolio is really broad [now],” Parrella-Romero said, giving Microsoft even more customers from whom to learn. And by expanding the scope of that input, even more doors are being opened to them. For instance, “Providing the full spectrum allows us to talk about containers in the cloud,” he explained. “Generally speaking, I think the key has been to offer architectural choices.”

The wide range of customers from these assorted focuses has led to a variety of use-cases. “I would say that we have a scale of customers in different sophistication when it comes to those cloud applications,” Parrella-Romero said. “It’s a journey, we’re learning a lot as well, we’ve been over 10 years engaging with the open-source [culture].”

There’s also an emphasis on expanding features, as with Azure Stack, which will enable users to apply templates directly to the stack, as well as working to improve feature parity.

“Our participation at Red Hat Summit has surpassed all of our expectations in terms of excitement,” Parrella-Romero said. “Engagement has been fantastic, [and] we’ve learned a lot … [about] what customers in the enterprise want.”

Watch the full video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of the Red Hat Summit.

Photo by SiliconANGLE