Just when everyone thought VMworld 2017 in Las Vegas was all about the Amazon Web Services Inc. deal, Google Cloud Platform crashed the party. Today, it announced a partnership with VMware Inc. to bring Kubernetes container orchestration on-premises with Pivotal Container Service, known as PKS. Is this a developer’s dream come true or just VMware cloud-washing its brand?

“Google really needs that enterprise presence, and VMware is in a great position relative to the Google deal,” said Peter Burris (@plburris) (pictured, left),  co-host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio.

Google trumpeting the deal as the most important for the platform in four years is probably puffing, Burris said. There are, however, existing tie-ins between the companies that the partnership will tighten and improve, he said in a discussion with co-hosts John Furrier (@furrier) (right) and Stu Miniman (@stu) (center).

“Most container implementations are running in a virtual machines,” and the deal will bring “industrial strength” to those combinations, Burris said. (* Disclosure below.)

Customers who think that this deal will magically take the work out of Kubernetes, however, will likely be disappointed, according to Furrier. “It’s really difficult,” he said “There needs to be cross-compatibility with application workloads.”

And although the partnership is strategically correct, it appears to be a long game without much “meat on the bone” for now, Furrier added. “OK, they’re shipping a commercial version of Kubo. Big deal,” he said.

Neither is VMware’s NSX virtualized networking and security platform — also highly hyped at the show — fully baked yet, according to Miniman. VMware is touting NSX as a crucial foundation for connecting different clouds together.

“This whole inter-fabric between clouds — this [NSX] is not an easy button for multicloud or anything like that,” Miniman said.

Does the journey of a thousand miles begin with PKS?

But we are in the midst of a transformation, after all, and should not expect many out-of-the-box solutions, Burris stated. “This is not plug-and-play world,” he said.

Do we have a blueprint to help us select companies that at least have their bearings? “It’s going to be true private cloud, hybrid cloud, and a set of methods and a computing model that starts with data and finishes with outcome,” Burris said.

With this in mind, customers are looking for technology companies that will make and sustain investments that drive simplification, Burris added. “And VMware is in the mix,” he 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 other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE