Docker is the single best thing to happen to software deployment in 20 years, not just because of what it did for eliminating "works on my machine" build problems, but because of what it enabled. A <i>huge</i> ecosystem has sprung up around containerization, with immense value created for other businesses. Their "Docker for Windows/Mac" apps are one of the first things I install on any new dev machine.<p>It's unfortunate they didn't figure out a way to make money off the best thing to happen to building and deploying software in 20 years.<p>A lot of other people did, from the startups now selling value-adds to Kubernetes like Kong and Tigera and TwistLock (since acquired) and others, to the public clouds which all offer Docker-based build services, image registries, and PaaS deployment tooling, to Kubernetes itself which for most users today still relies on Docker.
This seems like an embarassing error in communications for Docker! I wonder what's going on behind the scenes.<p>There is one positive message for Docker coming out today, which is that they raised $35 million dollars. Yeah, they didn't announce the valuation, so it is probably a down round, but still, getting $35 million dollars to work on your core business is a good thing.<p>However, the first announcement that TechCrunch wrote about didn't include that at all!<p>Check out the timeline here. At 8:45 a.m. TechCrunch publishes the first article, about selling off the Docker Enterprise line. Then at 9:21 a.m. TechCrunch publishes a second article - <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2019/11/13/mirantis-acquires-docker-enterprise/" rel="nofollow">https://techcrunch.com/2019/11/13/mirantis-acquires-docker-e...</a> - with two really large pieces of news. Both that Docker raised the $35 million, <i>and</i> they replaced their CEO for the second time since May.<p>TechCrunch says: <i>for reasons only known to Docker’s communications team, we weren’t told about this beforehand</i>. It seems like they only learned the full news after publishing the original article, and quickly wrote a followup in the next half hour.<p>What's going on at Docker to be this confused in the message to the press? Chaos around the leadership change? Close to running out of money and they only raised the round at the last moment? Were they going to sell off the open source component to someone else, but that fell through? Or, boringly, maybe they just thought they clicked "send" on an email that they didn't. I'll keep imagining there's an exciting reason though.
This makes much more sense if you think of Docker as two distinct companies that were awkwardly sharing the same name and corporate entity, and are now being separated.<p>One makes developer tools, has a huge developer brand and community. It does not generate revenue except for Docker Hub which probably barely pays for itself.<p>The other sells enterprise products competing directly with Red Hat and Vmware, and indirectly with the big cloud providers. It generates meaningful revenue, but probably flat growth, which considering the huge amounts of VC money invested, makes it a failed business.<p>The investors probably decided that 1) Docker developer tools and brand still have potential, but 2) the enterprise business failed to deliver, so 3) they are jettisoning the latter and recapitalizing the former- essentially starting over.
> Update: for reasons only known to Docker’s communications team, we weren’t told about
this beforehand, but the company also today announced that it has raised a $35 million
funding round from Benchmark. This doesn’t change the overall gist of the story below,
but it does highlight the company’s new direction.<p>This is weird<p>Edit: Link of announcement : <a href="http://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2019/11/13/1946551/0/en/Docker-Restructures-and-Secures-35-Million-to-Advance-Developer-Workflows-for-Modern-Applications.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2019/11/13/1946551...</a><p>Excerpt: AN FRANCISCO, Calif., Nov. 13, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Docker today announced it has successfully completed a recapitalization of its equity to position it for future growth, and has secured $35 million in new financing from previous investors Benchmark Capital and Insight Partners. The investment will be used to advance developers’ workflows when building, sharing and running modern applications.
I kinda wish Microsoft would just acquire the rest of the company and be done with it. It fits in very well with their Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers focus. Especially in the era of Open Source friendly MS.<p>VSCode, GutHub and Docker. Three peas in a pod.
Something makes me feel that today a lot of hard working employees lost all their stock options, or their hard earned cash if they previously exercised them... Mirantis can't possibly have paid multiple billions for that, which means all common stockholders were likely wiped out as part of this "fire sale" (pure speculation on my side).
This seems like a bit of an unusual move at first glance, hopefully more details will come out about Docker's plans.<p>From this article it sounds like Docker are keeping Desktop and Docker hub, neither of which make a lot of money (I'd have thought?), so not sure what their plans are to develop those, but you'd think that without the enterprise product line, they'd perhaps need to start monetising Docker Hub more...
Sad to see this happen, but honestly their SaaS products (Docker Cloud, Docker hub etc.) were absolutely terrible.<p>The UI and UX felt like some half assed intern rush job.<p>Terrible bugs around things like login and teams that just never got fixed.<p>As if no one really cared.
Not really sure what got acquired here? Are they just taking the docker enterprise business? How can they acquire Docker CLI? Isn't it opensource?
Can we please not show yet another container ship every time there is a new about Docker? I get it - all news articles need an image. But imagine being a non-tech person trying to follow news and wonders...