As infrastructure providers grow larger and expand beyond their core offerings, segments where companies used to collaborate are starting to become arenas for competition. As a result, companies like VMware Inc. are spinning off business units where they are not competitive enough, such as the sale of vCloud Air to OVH, a global, hyper-scale cloud provider.

“I think it helps everyone; it brings clarity to the customer, and that’s what we’re all here for. … The customer really understands this is someone investing billions of dollars in global infrastructure, security and scalability,” said Russ Reeder, president and chief executive officer of OVH US. “Then for a VMware customer, they understand they can use VMware for all of the great enterprise software scale that they provide. And as a vCAM [vCenter Configuration Analytics Manager] partner, now I’m not trying to compete.” 

Reeder spoke with host Stu Miniman (@stu) and guest host Justin Warren (@jpwarren) of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE media’s mobile livestreaming studio, at this week’s VMworld in Las Vegas, Nevada. (* Disclosure below.)

Transparency and clarity

The clear branding and transparency around the new vCloud Air integration strategy gives customers and partners confidence about where OVH is adding value, according to Reeder. This ensures that they will not be viewed as a threat in a space with a blurry line between competition and cooperation.

“We’re a pure play infrastructure provider. We work really well with other systems integrators, and this works very well with VMware’s vCAM offering for system integrators now that have found themselves competing with AWS and Rackspace, now that they’re spinning up their managed service providers,” Reeder said.

Looking forward, OVH plans on continuing to expand its global infrastructure footprint and hone in on its key strengths: higher performance, cutting-edge infrastructure technology.

“Now we are vertically integrated, we build our own servers, we build all of our own DDOS equipment, and we build our own data centers. Our servers are water cooled, and we have very strong R&D relationships with Intel and AMD,” Reeder said.

The company also has 27 data centers around the world, and it is investing $1.5B in the next three years to reach 50 data centers, he added. “Our data centers are not only high-performance but 50 percent more cost effective, and we give that cost saving directly back to the client,” Reeder concluded.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of VMworld 2017. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for VMworld 2017. Neither VMware Inc. nor OVH US have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE