Dick Sharod has been on his soap box again.

For those of you who don’t know, Dick is Stratus regional director for Africa.  Though he once famously compared himself to a hot air balloon in our Stratus’s internal newsletter, those of us who work with him see him as more of a Ferrari; he’s known for getting there fast and indeed, first.

So what’s his beef this time?

In a recent interview with Theo Boshoff of  ITWeb, he makes the bold claim that “by complicating virtualisation, vendors are discouraging investment from smaller companies.”

In this article, Dick campaigns for vendors to stop trying to short change smaller enterprises by offering them reduced value.  He suggests a way forward where SMEs have a choice of solutions that make sense size-wise whilst ensuring fast ROI.

With Microsoft focusing in on integrating virtualisation in new places, especially SMEs; our recent success showcasing cloud and virtual appliance solutions at VMworld; and our announcement about the forthcoming launch of Avance — vendors better beware. Opportunity has been calling and like an Aston Martin, Stratus look set to get there first.