from Hacker News

Mirantis acquires Docker Enterprise and Docker raises $35M

by chuhnk on 11/13/19, 4:56 PM with 232 comments

  • by AaronFriel on 11/13/19, 6:18 PM

    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 huge 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.

    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.

    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.

  • by lacker on 11/13/19, 5:58 PM

    This seems like an embarassing error in communications for Docker! I wonder what's going on behind the scenes.

    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.

    However, the first announcement that TechCrunch wrote about didn't include that at all!

    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 - https://techcrunch.com/2019/11/13/mirantis-acquires-docker-e... - with two really large pieces of news. Both that Docker raised the $35 million, and they replaced their CEO for the second time since May.

    TechCrunch says: for reasons only known to Docker’s communications team, we weren’t told about this beforehand. It seems like they only learned the full news after publishing the original article, and quickly wrote a followup in the next half hour.

    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.

  • by zapita on 11/13/19, 6:01 PM

    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.

    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.

    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.

    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.

  • by ravivyas on 11/13/19, 5:44 PM

    > 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.

    This is weird

    Edit: Link of announcement : http://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2019/11/13/1946551...

    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.

  • by talawahtech on 11/13/19, 6:58 PM

    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.

    VSCode, GutHub and Docker. Three peas in a pod.

  • by deanmoriarty on 11/13/19, 10:33 PM

    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).

  • by raesene9 on 11/13/19, 5:10 PM

    This seems like a bit of an unusual move at first glance, hopefully more details will come out about Docker's plans.

    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...

  • by tnolet on 11/13/19, 7:16 PM

    Sad to see this happen, but honestly their SaaS products (Docker Cloud, Docker hub etc.) were absolutely terrible.

    The UI and UX felt like some half assed intern rush job.

    Terrible bugs around things like login and teams that just never got fixed.

    As if no one really cared.

  • by chuhnk on 11/13/19, 5:00 PM

    Can anyone explain what this means for the future of Docker the company?

  • by z92 on 11/13/19, 6:53 PM

    This news comes at a time when I discovered that Fedora 31, the latest release, doesn't support Docker anymore.

  • by fortytw2 on 11/13/19, 5:09 PM

    ...the Docker CLI is part of the sale?

    What exactly does that leave Docker the company with?

  • by tiuPapa on 11/13/19, 5:16 PM

    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?

  • by hnmullany on 11/13/19, 11:46 PM

    LinkedIN profiles that mention Docker

    Mar 2015: 14,000

    Mar 2016: 50,000

    Dec 2017: 178,000

    Nov 2019: 534,000

    Still going up!

  • by GordonS on 11/13/19, 11:21 PM

    I've never even heard of Mirantis - curious to know if I'm alone in this, or if they're better known by others on HN?

  • by thresh on 11/13/19, 6:04 PM

    Finally they found someone to get sold to. Only 750 customers, so low.

    And no info on the price.

  • by harikb on 11/13/19, 8:09 PM

    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...

  • by laminarflow on 11/13/19, 7:28 PM

    Are there any particularly detailed/good anthologies out there about the founding/fate of Docker after Google opensourced Kubernetes?

  • by levesque on 11/13/19, 5:53 PM

    Don't Docker Enterprise and Docker Desktop share code and expertise? Isn't this a loss for both of those projects?

  • by mister_hn on 11/14/19, 6:19 AM

    It buffles me that software-wonder Docker raises so few money compared to unicorns like WeWork or some SF Startup.

  • by shshhdhs on 11/14/19, 2:36 AM

    I wonder why the investors weren't concerned. They've replaced their CEO for the second time since May.

  • by Pirate-of-SV on 11/13/19, 7:52 PM

    Does anyone have a background story of Mirantis? Where's the money coming from?

  • by techntoke on 11/13/19, 8:33 PM

    When is Docker going to add the basic functionality to see if a container image is out of date from the registry, without having to re-pull the image?

  • by hlesesne on 11/14/19, 3:02 AM

    Who keeps Docker hub?

  • by gramakri on 11/13/19, 5:16 PM

    > Mirantis will keep the Docker Enterprise brand alive, though, which will surely not create any confusion.

    Is this in jest?

  • by baron816 on 11/13/19, 5:46 PM

    Is it just me, or does it seem that New York tech companies are really struggling?