PaaS cloud market heating up

Igor Altman

December 6, 2010

One of the most active segments of the cloud computing market these days is Platform-as-a-Service plays, or PaaS. Today, this sector is primarily dominated by start-ups and expansion stage software companies, but incumbent software vendors are moving in via acquisitions.

Just last week, a new entrant, Cloudbees, received venture capital investment from venture funds including Matrix, who was an investor in SpringSource. SpringSource is now owned by VMWare and behind its own Cloud Foundry PaaS, as well as the Code2Cloud offering.

Also last week, Makara, another PaaS, was acquired by Red Hat.

So far, the PaaS’s are aligned along development environments and frameworks, and roughly break out as follows:

  • Java: Makara (Red Hat), SpringSource (VMware), Cloudbees, and Bungee Connect
  • Ruby on Rails: Heroku, EngineYard, and a few smaller players

No doubt this year will see more acquisitions in this space, as well as new entrants. 

Senior Director Project Management

Igor Altman is Senior Director of Product Management at <a href="https://www.mdsol.com/en/">Medidata Solutions</a>, a leading global provider of cloud-based clinical development solutions that enhance the efficiency of customers’ clinical trials. Prior to Medidata, he worked at OpenView focusing on new investments in the IT space.