Their public acquisitions:
Fig: cluster deployment configuration
Orchard: hosting
Koality: continuous integration
The iOS app store changed the way developers build and scale software. By publishing Flappy Bird, the creator was able to handle millions of installations without any thought at all. There was no need for payment gateways in distribution either. The author just built it and put it in the app store.
Imagine a similar situation with server side software? Imagine a service like "Oh Life" (recently shut down). Instead of signing up for their service and leaning on them to pay for the operations costs, what if I bought "Oh Life" as a server app and paid my own hosting costs. "Oh Life" goes out of business, but I still have my running copy and can continue to use it forever.
Docker may be the key to creating the right user experience here. Launching an AMI for a private service like this is 1) too complicated and 2) too expensive for a single user. The user experience could be streamlined fairly easily, but the footprint is too big without something like Docker.
Maybe a premium docker repo (mentioned above), where you pay for ... something?
How about competing directly with quay.io but they link up all the networking pieces for you automatically? a docker sdn! :P
1) Paid Support (B2B, B2B2C)
2) Docker Hub Private functionality, on-prem offering
3) Services engagements through a set of SI partners, 10 of which we announced at DockerCon US
Happy to answer more questions along this line.
There's quite a bit that's misleading/not quite correct in the TC article, but we definitely have a solid plan in place for sustainability.
1) Paid Support (B2B, B2B2C)
2) Docker Hub Private functionality, on-prem offering
3) Services engagements through a set of SI partners, 10 of which we announced at DockerCon US
Happy to answer more questions along this line.