EMC’s Chuck Hollis has called Oracle out on its non-support for VMware, accusing the company of attempting to lock VMware out of Oracle accounts and lock customers in to the Oracle stack.

He may have a point, but I’m somewhat surprised that this issue has raised its head now. We noted when Oracle launched Oracle VM at OpenWorld in 2007 that “the company will not be certifying its database and applications on other virtualization software”.

Perhaps the impending combination of Oracle/Sun has got EMC worried. Funnily enough, a typo in our post from 2006 suggests why:

“With Oracle VM and Unbreakable Linux Oracle can now claim to provide customers with everything that sits on top of its server hardware.”

I was actually referring to the customer’s server, but the mistake appears prescient given Oracle’s impending ownership of Sun and Larry Ellison’s declaration that Oracle will become a systems company. As does the following statement:

“At OpenWorld it became increasingly clear that Oracle’s strategy is to own as many customer ‘touch points” as it can. The company will tell you this is so it can provide customers with more value and increased services, but locking out the competition is a nice little side win.”

Oracle’s virtualization strategy might not be good for VMware, and Chuck Hollis makes a good case in arguing that it might not be good for the customer, but at you can’t say you weren’t warned.