In 2013 VMware started delivering their own operated and owned public Infrastructure as a Service service. The service named vCloud Hybrid Service (vCHS) is currently available in the US only. A single datacenter in the UK is running in beta. Additional European datacenters will be rolled out in 2014.
vCHS allows customers to have full control over virtual machines and networking. Announced future services are Disaster Recovery as a Service , ability to backup virtual machines and Desktop as a Service.
vCHS user base is growing which allows VMware to lower their pricing for their Dedidated Cloud service. Unlike the other service called Virtual Private Cloud which is multi-tenant , Dedicated Cloud allows customers to have exclusive access to compute and memory resources of a host. This allows memory overcommitment and prevents licensing issues with vendors still maintaining an pre-cloud way of licensing based on licensing per physical CPU/socket.
Per January 1 2014 VMware reduced pricing on Dedicated Cloud by 50 percent, to 7 cents an hour for a fully protected, fully redundant 1 GB VM with 1 vCPU. If you’re a VMware customer, you’ll undoubtedly pay less than this MSRP price based on volume/commitment. The minimum commitment is one month.
Read this VMware blogpost for additional info.