READ:

The rock throwing began. The day of the Citrix announcement, OpenStack officials shot back and downplayed the move and touted the momentum, strength and diversity of the OpenStack movement.

So, where does all this news leave OpenStack development? Supporters of the project say they will keep on trucking. But some analysts believe the news from Citrix could dramatically change the open-source cloud game. "This puts more pressure on OpenStack, that's for sure," said James Staten, a Forrester researcher.

OpenStack's release prior to Essex, code-named Diablo, last fall was underwhelming, Staten says and "it started a clock in a lot of people's eyes: When will they have something that's ready to deploy?" More than a third of businesses surveyed by Forrester say they have money in their budgets to spend on cloud deployments this year. "They don't want to wait," he says. "They're ready to go." OpenStack officials are optimistic about the Essex release. But, Staten says the true test of OpenStack progress and market standing will be judged by enterprise and cloud service provider adoption.

READ: