IBM's OpenStack bet - deja vu?

Cloud-o-sphere was abuzz today with IBM's announcement of making its Cloud Services and software based on open standards. Specifically, it was learnt that its SmartCloud Orchestrator is built on OpenStack which is in beta now and will be available later this year. Analysts and pundits immediately brought up the similarity to IBM's backing of Linux a decade ago. Deja Vu!This is definitely a good move towards open standards and avoiding vendor-lockins. This also strengthens OpenStack based standards (rather than AWS or other platforms).

What it means to OpenStack?

Big stamp of approval. Probably a lot more PR. Anything more? I am not convinced yet. SmartCloud is not based on OpenStack yet, only the orchestrator is. IBM VP of software Robert LeBlanc seems to be hinting it is possible, but there seems to be no concrete plans as of yet. It is not very clear how OpenStack will be integrated with SmartCloud platform itself.

Would this be as good to OpenStack as IBM's backing to Linux in early 2000s? Please note that this time, IBM is little bit late. OpenStack already has great momentum. So, we will have to wait and see...