In April 2015, Docker was valued at $1 billion. Why is that? Of course, Docker is not just a trend. What’s so remarkable about this containerization technology? Why is the company worth so much?

  • Growth of the Company
  • Value of the Company
  • 5 Reasons Docker is Worth $1 Billion
  • One-Click Docker

Growth of the Company

Docker adoption has been growing rapidly. In fact, a study of 7000 businesses found that adoption of Docker rose 400% between September 2014 and November 2015.

The study, from infrastructure monitoring group Datadog, showed that Docker had almost none of the market in fall 2014 but was running on 6% of the servers tracked for the report by November. Interestingly enough, this open source software is particularly popular among enterprises: over half of firms with more than 500 hosts have used Docker, at least in testing environments.

Plus, most who use Docker keep using it. According to Ian Barker of BetaNews, two out of three who test it end up fully adopting it within two months.

Growth of the Company

Docker isn’t just popular. It’s a highly valued company. In other words, the technology is seen as a goldmine by investors.

“Barely two years after releasing its software to the world, the open source company has raised a $95m funding round that one source says puts it either at – or very close to – a $1bn valuation,” noted Richard Walter of The Financial Times in April. Since the money came from venture capital groups attracted (in part) to the open source model, he said, “this will be one of the more conspicuous tests of whether giving away software can be the route to a seriously large business.”

5 Reasons Docker is Worth $1 Billion

Let’s look at why the investors might be right. What makes Docker so incredibly valuable? Let’s look at the five reasons offered by Mike Kavis of Forbes after his study of the containerization field:

#1 – The new path for distributed apps

First, it’s important to understand that Docker is not just in the business of containers. The company’s CTO, Solomon Hykes, said last year at Docker’s annual convention that the organization’s mission was to “build a software layer to make the Internet programmable.” To make his point, Hykes revealed that 95% of the code that Docker has developed is not containers. Instead, that bulk of the effort is geared toward creating tools so that “IT Plumbing” doesn’t get in the way of fast and clean application deployment.

The Docker system allows companies to construct their own platforms. By building these platforms, the organizations are essentially pushing the infrastructural issues out of the way so that programers have what they need to develop at their fingertips, with all settings and configurations pre-determined. With Docker, you don’t need a lot of manual management.

#2 – Different way to frame PaaS

Originally operating as a straight platform-as-a-service company, Docker figured out that PaaS was too all-encompassing to make sense for enterprises, since their systems are so broad and diverse. Docker allows companies to create platforms as needed and to incorporate their legacy environments.  That allows companies to get the benefits of platforms while being able to tailor it to their needs, and without having to migrate everything.

#3 – Easier to avoid lock-in

Many companies get worried about vendor lock-in with platform-as-a-service. Docker is in the continuing process of integrating itself with as many services as possible. You can select Docker services to perform functions such as authentication, service discovery, and load balancing; or you can use an outside partner.

Either way, it’s easy to set up, notes Kavis. “With the new plugin architecture, the customer can assemble in Lego-like fashion the preferred services to meet the requirements of their desired platform,” he says.

#4 – Hybrid cloud

Many IT chiefs either have or want a hybrid cloud hosting solution, so that developers are able to build and deploy on infrastructure that makes the most sense for that project. The basic idea is that the firm will be able to switch between the private and public clouds they have established seamlessly. So far hybrid clouds have been a bit tricky to create, but Docker should be making it easier to bring hybrid to fruition.

#5 – Full-featured ecosystem

As was indicated above, Docker is much more than containers. The ecosystem is really what holds a lot of its value, explains Battery Ventures technology fellow Adrian Cockcroft. “If you want to raise a lot of money, it is really good if you can be the center of an ecosystem and have lots of companies orbiting around you,” he says. “That’s the real value Docker has… They have built and are maintaining an extremely vigorous ecosystem.”

One-Click Docker

Do you want to try out Docker today? The easiest way is with no-contract, per-second-billed Docker Cloud Hosting. Simply select the One-click Docker App from within our control panel, and your Cloud Server will be up and running with Docker already installed in under 30 seconds.

If you wish to learn more about how to use Docker, check out our how-to on using Windows containers and Docker.

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