The open letter, in the form of a blog entry from Red Hat VP Mark Bohannon, contains thinly veiled criticism of Microsoft and other companies that are launching their own public clouds.

The European Commission plans to rewrite ICT industry rules to make sure dominant technologies, like devices with always-on connectivity, do not lock consumers into supporting monopolies and hamper innovation, Neelie Kroes, EU commissioner for the Digital Agenda, told EurActiv in an exclusive interview.

Cloud architecture has to be defined in a way that allows applications to move around, or clouds can become the mother of all lock-ins, warned Red Hat's CEO James Whitehurst.

Microsoft latches onto Moodle to create lock-in at schools

LOCAL IT developers are being stifled by the dominance of US software companies that hold on to government business through "vendor lock-in", industry observers say.

Just as a brief summary for those not familiar with the topic: A vendor of proprietary software can store data in closed, proprietary data formats. Thus, if you are a customer of that vendor it becomes very difficult for you to move to a competitor's product, for example if you like the features or price/performance of that offering better. Instead, the cost of moving, the risk of loosing all your data may be too great. You are 'locked in' to the current vendor...