The term “cloud computing” conjures up different meanings and images to different people. For some, it might mean cloud storage, whether it’s music or documents. For others, it might be processing in the cloud (think Amazon EC2 or RackSpace). For others, it is applications.

However “cloud” is defined, the stakes are big. Mighty forces (i.e. IT vendors large and small) are lined up to deliver the cloud.

If one were to look up to the actual clouds in the sky, you could imagine the various players as Norse gods, ready to do battle. Based on its recent pricing announcement, we might think of VMware as Loki, the evil trickster. As he’s gained power, he threatens his subjects.

Open source is the good guy here, the Thor to VMware’s Loki. The open source KVM hypervisor is gaining strength. The formation of the Open Virtualization Alliance provides a communications medium for the players in the KVM ecosystem to extoll the virtues and capabilities of open source to help win the battle of the cloud. The open source hypervisor Xen, has also been a counterbalance to VMware for several years now. And we would be remiss, of course, if we did not mention that our own ConVirt 2.0 is providing a level of virtualization and cloud management heretofore not possible for Xen and KVM.

Other open source storm clouds are threatening VMware. The recent announcement by Citrix that it acquired open source-based Cloud.com is another potential threat to vendor lock-in.

The truth is that cloud computing is no myth. In its many forms, it is real, it is here and it would be most unfortunate for any single player to dominate the cloud with inflexible and predatory pricing.

May you find your Valhalla in the cloud(s) with open source.

Today we announced our inclusion into the OpenStack initiative, contributing resources and expertise. We look forward to making the project a success by joining forces with many others in the industry.

OpenStack is backed by 75 participating organizations from around the world in an important effort to create freely available code, standards, and a common ground to benefit consumers of cloud computing technology. We are excited to be a part of something so great.

We should note that last month, our company joined the Open Virtualization Alliance (OVA), which fosters the adoption of KVM as an open virtualization alternative to closed and expensive virtualization products. (Are you listening VMware?)

You see, at Convirture we’re big believers in making open source software available to and benefit all of our users. We expect to have more news to tell you about OpenStack.

Stay tuned.

Any time a disruptive, game-changing technology enters the marketplace, the old guard circles the wagons to defend the territory. We saw it when the internal combustion engine replaced horses, when mainframes were giving way to client-server, when Linux threatened Unix … you get the gist.

So it is with virtualization.

VMware is the current market leader. But as we’ve seen over and over again, just because something is, does not mean it always shall be.

Recently, Convirture and a host of other innovative companies joined the Open Virtualization Alliance (OVA), a group dedicated to supporting and promoting Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) virtualization technology. The OVA was launched with great fanfare and success in May and seems to be gaining momentum.

Recently, SearchServerVirtualization did what any good journalism outlet would do and cast a critical eye at the OVA after all the initial launch hoopla. The title, “Open Virtualization Alliance unlikely to unseat VMware” pretty much gives you the tone of the story.

It’s a fair and well-written piece, but we can all agree that the OVA will not be bidding for contracts against VMware. The OVA was formed to educate the market about KVM and, in that regard, it is already succeeding. Ultimately, however, it will be KVM and the vendors and ecosystem that support it that will unseat VMware, not any industry alliance.

The fact is that IT managers are living under the tyranny of a single vendor – VMware – and that is never good for customers. KVM represents a real choice – an alternative that can reduce costs and increase ROI.

If the OVA is successful in helping the world know that there is a choice, so much the better. But the market will decide winners and losers based on head-to-head competition on price, features and performance. As the CEO of a company that for the past five years has been working on technology to support open source-based virtualization, including KVM, I am more than happy and confident to take that fight to VMware.

Let the best technology (and the customers) win!