Despite EMC's on-paper commitment to Cloudscaling, it's possible the startup is being acquired just for VMware.

According to a Bloomberg report on Monday, EMC has agreed to buy the cloud-computing startup for less than $50 million. EMC said it is looking to use Cloudscaling to extend its cloud platform support, a move that may hint at EMC's thought process. Zeroing in on how EMC's storage products work with OpenStack in cloud-computing environments may offer a glimpse in why customers would choose to use EMC's hardware with the free software.

But with speculation surrounding what EMC will do with its VMware shares (hedge fund Elliott Management reportedly wants VMware spun out), the question of Cloudscaling's future remains.

VMware just unveiled its own OpenStack distribution at VMworld a few months ago, and last year, VMware began its journey into OpenStack with its vSphere OpenStack Virtual Appliance (VOVA). It's still foggy how VMware's OpenStack strategy would coincide with that of EMC's, if at all, 0r if the Cloudscaling purchase is part of a bigger plan to package VMware in a cloud company as a spin-off.

Cloudscaling is known for helping companies manage several computers connected together through OpenStack, and for creating technology designs that provide easy ways to connect computers running OpenStack to public clouds, like those run by Google and Amazon.

Lately, it seems as though everyone is in the market for a cloud infrastructure company, so EMC's hush-hush deal is just another in a long list that includes HP buying Eucalyptus Systems, Cisco purchasing Metacloud, and IBM's acquiring of SoftLayer (coming in at $2 billion, just a smidge more than EMC's deal). We're just wondering who might be next.