{"id":340129,"date":"2017-05-05T07:10:28","date_gmt":"2017-05-04T23:10:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/techcrunch.com\/?p=1485661"},"modified":"2017-05-05T07:10:28","modified_gmt":"2017-05-04T23:10:28","slug":"dockers-new-ceo-sees-gargantuan-opportunities-ahead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/dockers-new-ceo-sees-gargantuan-opportunities-ahead\/","title":{"rendered":"Docker\u2019s new CEO sees gargantuan opportunities ahead"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Earlier this week, Docker made the surprise announcement<\/a> that its long-time CEO Ben Golub was stepping down and that former Concur CEO Steve Singh was stepping into his shoes. While this move surely came as a surprise to many, it was actually in the making for a while.<\/p>\n

Singh told me that he first talked to Golub and Docker founder Solomon Hykes last June, during the company\u2019s DockerCon developer conference in Seattle. \u201cThey wanted to meet with somebody who\u2019d built a substantive\u00a0company,\u201d Singh told me. At the time, though, Hykes and Golub were looking for a board member, not a new CEO.\u00a0A few months later, Singh joined the board. \u201cAs I look at boards, what drives me is: do I like the opportunity the company is pursuing,\u201d Singh said, and added that he also had to like the team, too, of course.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Docker\u2019s new CEO Steve Singh<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cA small handful of months after I joined the Docker board, Ben broached the prospect of me becoming the CEO,\u201d Singh recalls. At the time, though, he wasn\u2019t interested in the position and instead told Golub that he didn\u2019t see the need because, in his view, Golub was doing a great job. Golub clearly didn\u2019t let that thought rest and a few months later, he again approach Singh. \u201cThis led to an in-depth conversation because I had the good fortune of scaling a business before,\u201d said Singh, who finally accepted the position after the board approached him, too.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe opportunity is gargantuan,\u201d Singh said about Docker\u2019s prospects. He noted that Docker is definitely a different kind of company than Concur, but he also sees a number of similarities. Concur\u2019s clients, too, were enterprise customers, and that\u2019s also the kind of customer Docker is aiming for (though in his definition, any corporate client falls into the \u201centerprise\u201d category, no matter the size).<\/p>\n

Singh also stressed that he likes the community aspect of Docker, which recently launched its new open-source initiative<\/a>. Docker\u2019s relationship with its community \u2014 and the open-source community at large \u2014 definitely had its ups and downs over the years. \u201cCan we do a better job for our community? Of course,\u201d Singh said.<\/p>\n

Looking ahead, Singh says that he currently has three objectives for the company: continue to innovate, both in open source and in the products it\u2019s building on top of that; invest in sales and innovation for enterprise customers; and build a great company culture. He was quick to point out that he doesn\u2019t believe the previous leadership didn\u2019t do this, but that\u00a0these are simply his priorities going forward.<\/p>\n

The main emphasis here, though, is surely on getting more enterprise customers to sign up for Docker\u2019s paid products. \u201cSolomon and Ben created a foundation that is changing the enterprise,\u201d said Singh. \u201cWe have 400 customers today, so we are already\u00a0servicing enterprise customers today. We will accelerate our innovations for enterprise customers and our ability to reach enterprises with more sales people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Singh is joining Docker at a time when it\u2019s under pressure from new competitors, especially in the growing ecosystem around the Google-incubated Kubernetes project. He doesn\u2019t seem to see this as a threat, though. In his view, in a market that is as large as the container-as-a-service market, you\u2019ll always get multiple players vying for similar customers. In the end, that competition is good for everyone. He also stressed that Docker already allows you to mix and match its services\u00a0and tools with those from other vendors.<\/p>\n

So for the time being, it doesn\u2019t look like we should expect any dramatic changes in Docker\u2019s strategy \u2014 at least not in the short term.\u00a0The company was already on a path that focused strongly on expanding its reach in the enterprise. It\u2019ll only continue to do so (likely with an expanded sales and marketing team) while also focusing on its open-source offerings at the same time.<\/p>\n

Featured Image: kyohei ito\/Flickr<\/a> UNDER A CC BY-SA 2.0<\/a> LICENSE<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"\" Earlier this week, Docker made the surprise announcement that its long-time CEO Ben Golub was stepping down and that former Concur CEO Steve Singh was stepping into his shoes. While this move surely came as a surprise to many, it was actually in the making for a while. Read More<\/a><\/p>\n

\n<\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a>\n<\/div>\n

\"\"\/ <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5817,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[59,66,26],"class_list":["post-340129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-media","tag-techcrunch","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5817"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=340129"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340129\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=340129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=340129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=340129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}