AWS Rival Rackspace Plans Managed AWS Service

Managed cloud company Rackspace for the first time officially revealed it’s planning a managed service for Amazon Web Services Inc. (AWS), its market-dominating rival in the Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) space.
Yesterday’s announcement was made during an earnings call regarding the company’s latest financial results. AWS has been challenging AWS and other larger cloud offerings like Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform.
Rackspace, a Texas-based company, has provided a mapping to AWS services and its own comparable offerings to try to capture some AWS market share. However, Taylor Rhodes, CEO, seemed to indicate a shift towards a more “if you don’t beat them, join ’em” approach.
According to Seeking Alpha’s transcript, Rhodes stated that there was strong demand for managed services by customers who prefer AWS cloud platform. “We have a team that is creating the market-leading offering for customers looking for specialized expertise and Fanatical support on AWS cloud. We anticipate launching this offering later in the year and look forward to sharing all details with you.
Rhodes noted that the company had previously announced it was offering its trademark “Fanatical support” to Azure cloud users as part of an expanded strategy “to provide expertise, support, and management for multiple public cloud platforms.”
Rhodes stated that “Because our scale and reputation as Fanatical Support, it is possible to become the dominant service provider on these cloud platforms,”