OpenStack is taking off at a pace that has defied almost everyone’s initial assumptions, and buying patterns are beginning to emerge. That’s a good thing, and it inevitably means change.

Smart companies iterate fast and respond to market changes. Startups are held to a higher standard than established entities. That’s because markets evolve quickly while resources are extremely limited. If you’re fortunate (as we are at Cloudscaling) you have a board that’s committed to responding quickly as market conditions change.

Pragmatic startup teams fail faster and adjust quickly. We are a fast-firing, hard-charging, startup of professionals who are passionate about building clouds using OpenStack. We are no different from any other team of intelligent and dedicated entrepreneurs.  Given that, we’ve seen the need to make a change.

To that end, Cloudscaling has initiated a leadership transition process to accelerate the company’s growth in the OpenStack space. After discussions with the board around future directions and the evolving needs of the company, the board and Michael Grant have agreed that a change in leadership is needed. The first step in that process is to begin the search for a new CEO with experience leading business-to-business cloud product companies through the rapid adoption phase of growth.

During the search, I will serve as interim CEO. I will continue to focus on building the company’s engineering, product and sales teams while focusing our marketing and sales efforts on specific markets where prospects have responded favorably to our value proposition.

I want to thank Michael. Under his leadership we’ve made impressive progress. Michael led us through two rounds of funding, helped us transition from a professional services to a product company and refined our message to penetrate new markets.

Cloudscaling has made tremendous progress since the beginning of the year. We’ve signed significant customer deals, launched and announced new products, signed major partnerships and closed $10M in Series B financing. This leadership transition is designed to put the company in the best possible position to leverage that success and bring our product, Open Cloud System (OCS), to a growing base of enterprise customers.

With the momentum of a killer first half of 2013, the wind is at our backs. We have a third-generation product about to ship, customers, positive market momentum and cash in the bank. Change is usually uncomfortable, but when done deliberately and for the right reasons, it will position us for continued success.

If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me.

–Randy Bias

 Acting CEO

 Cloudscaling