Will EMC take on Amazon's cloud computing service?

Microsoft and VMware have engaged in their usual war of words in the lead up to VMware's annual conference, VMWorld 2009, on Monday, but the rumour mill suggests it may actually be VMware parent EMC that steals the show.

Several commentators have made note of a recent presentation [PDF - see slide 15] by EMC cloud computing executive Riki Fine, in which Fine discussed a service called the 'Atmos onLine Compute Service'.

EMC has offered storage-as-a-service, EMC Atmos onLine, in beta mode since November 2008. The service provides enterprises and software vendors with an on-demand,online storage resource for web-based applications.

But the storage specialist has never before talked of offering a compute service on-demand to compete with the likes of Amazon's EC2.

The slide from Fine's presentation appears to indicate such a service is in the works:

The rumour mill suggests EMC will choose VMware's annual conference to make a splash about the service.

The usual sledging

Historically, the week leading up to VMworld 2009 sees VMware and arch-enemy Microsoft engage in a sledging match over competition between their products.  

This week, Microsoft spun out a press release that claimed those customers switching from VMware to Microsoft's Hyper V alternative save US$170,000 (AU$202,000) on average.

"The light switch has gone on for customers, and they realise they no longer have to pay a virtualisation tax with VMware that creates an isolated, virtual island within their IT departments," said Microsoft virtualisation marketing exec David Greschler.

VMware, meanwhile, released a note on their blog claiming that 21,000 customers have moved to VMware between January and July, with the company's latest suite vSphere4 downloaded 350,000 times since its launch.

EMC has been asked for comment.