fanatical support on the open cloud

It was an honor this morning to appear on CNBC’s Squawk Box for a lively discussion on one of my favorite topics: the future of cloud computing.

Two years ago, Rackspace made the massive commitment to be the open alternative in cloud computing. That vision is now a reality.

Yesterday kicked off a new era for our customers and the Rackspace Cloud: an era of openness, choice and innovation. It’s been 18 months in the making, and we have officially moved our core cloud technology to OpenStack, the open source cloud operating system that we founded.

When we set out on the journey to the open cloud 18 months ago, we knew our goals were ambitious. We wanted to build the Rackspace Cloud on OpenStack and, in the process, take OpenStack to the next level. We wanted to bring a truly open cloud computing solution to the world; and we knew it would take a tremendous amount of work.

Recently, I read an excellent column in The Atlantic by author and venture advisor Bill Davidow. It reinforced why we at Rackspace do the work that we do — how Fanatical Support on the Open Cloud will help customers avoid vendor lock-in and regain real choice and control over their computing.