Last week, hyperconverged turned cloud player Nutanix made some noise in the industry with the announcement around its intent to acquire Frame, a provider of cloud-based Windows desktop and application delivery, though terms were not yet disclosed.

Nutanix said it was looking to "address customer requirements for DaaS in the mid-market, while continuing its long-standing support for large-scale VDI projects delivered via enterprise datacenters.  This includes continued support for VMware Horizon View, as well as remaining Citrix Ready certified for Citrix XenDesktop and XenApp."

"Companies desperately need a cloud-native desktop solution for their multi-cloud environments which combines the performance of on-prem offerings with the flexibility and cost optimization of the cloud.  That's why we built Frame," said Nikola Bozinovic, Founder and CEO at Frame.  "Nutanix shares our vision of simplifying critical IT functions so companies can save money, save time and still achieve exceptional performance no matter their underlying infrastructure, and we're so proud to be joining the family." 

The hope in the acquisition announcement seemed to come across as though, with the addition of Frame into the hyperconverged company's repertoire, its customers would be able to deliver desktop-as-a-service to their users from multiple clouds.  And Frame would simply provide its customers with yet another deployment option for delivering virtual desktops. 

But, not everyone saw things that way.

A senior executive at VMware, Sanjay Poonen, Chief Operating Officer, was found criticizing the recent acquisition on Twitter, insisting his industry rival was continuing down the path of "copycatting" VMware.  First with SDDC, then Hybrid Cloud, and now, EUC. 

Poonen followed that comment with another dig within the same Tweet, alluding to the fact that Nutanix was late to the DaaS game... a game that he claims VMware itself had pioneered back in 2013.  

And the Tweet then concluded with "Goodbye @citrix+@nutanix alliance," as he called out the fact that Nutanix will undoubtedly find itself in some type of competition not just with VMware but with their "other partner" -- Citrix.  

It could be fake news and FUD being spread, or maybe things will evolve that way down the road with Citrix as Poonen claims; but as of this moment, Citrix is taking the high road on Twitter, responding with a congratulatory message from its official Twitter account, along with a statement of love ("You know we love you guys") as they cheer on the acquisition news.  Even Citrix CEO David Henshall Tweeted his own personal positive message, adding "Looking forward to @citrix and @nutanix continuing to win together."

In the initial Tweet, there was a lack of a 4th bullet point from Poonen that could have spelled out "Goodbye @vmware + @frame alliance."  But, there was no mention of anything like that, one way or the other, when it came to the collaboration or partnership between those two companies.

In this latest volley of Tweet exchanges, there was no word as of yet on how this acquisition will effect the Frame and VMware partnership which was announced a year ago at VMworld 2017.  Back then, the announcement was around VMware working together with Frame to change how Windows apps would be delivered using modern, web-based workflows, in which Frame would power VMware's App Express service as part of Workspace ONE.  Maybe something juicy will show up in Twitter?

So, what's next?  According to Bozinovic, "We're as committed as ever to the success of our existing customers and excited about those we'll see on Frame for the first time.  We will continue to operate the service without interruption for all our customers on Microsoft Azure and AWS and we'll continue onboarding new customers wishing to use Frame in the public cloud."  

And he went on to say, "The potential for cross pollination across a global workforce that Nutanix has, and providing Nutanix its first Serbian R&D presence opens up exciting possibilities for not just continued innovation for desktop and app delivery, but to help Nutanix on its journey of becoming a cloud services company.  The limitless ambition that both companies have to make cloud services invisible provides an excellent landscape in which to continue investing and aspiring to bigger and better things."

More information will be coming out in the weeks ahead around support for the Nutanix infrastructure and their vision for the modern desktop as a service offering.