(Updated with VMware and Juniper statement; both companies remain an OpenDaylight sponsor at the silver level.)

Juniper and VMware have apparently stepped down as high-level sponsors of the OpenDaylight Project.

Both companies' logos have been removed from the membership page on the OpenDaylight site as of today. And while the OpenDaylight Project isn't explicitly saying Juniper and VMware are gone, it's clear that the vendors' interest in OpenDaylight has waned.

"Juniper and VMware have both shared their intention to significantly reduce their investment and engagement in OpenDaylight," says Neela Jacques, executive director of the project.

It's not an April Fool's Day prank. With OpenDaylight having been launched in April 2013, annual sponsorship fees are due sometime around April 1. If a sponsor was thinking of jumping ship, now would be a proper time to do it.

Juniper and VMware were among OpenDaylight's founding sponsors, at the platinum and gold levels, respectively.

In some ways, Juniper's departure isn't a surprise. The company has a competing initiative with OpenContrail, its own open source SDN controller. (Both sides have downplayed the competitive aspect, but many people, including me, consider OpenContrail to be an alternative to OpenDaylight.)

Moreover, Juniper has never seemed particularly excited about OpenDaylight. Despite being a platinum-level sponsor, Juniper was remiss about contributing code and people until early 2014. Juniper did start contributing more actively last year, and we heard some good things about the company's participation at first.

VMware's motivation for leaving is less clear. With NSX, the company's focus is more on network virtualization than an SDN controller, so the company might have concluded that active OpenDaylight participation wasn't all that vital.

Nothing would seem to prevent Juniper or VMware from coming back as silver-level sponsors — a level that's significantly cheaper and doesn't carry the same requirements for contributing developers to the project. It would be a more appropriate level for a company that wants to keep ties to OpenDaylight without making a serious commitment.

SDxCentral has reached out to both vendors; we'll let you know what they say.

UPDATE 4:00 p.m.: VMware offers this statement: "VMware is a participant in numerous industry organizations and projects. VMware continues to be committed to community-led projects, including OpenDaylight, of which we are a silver member."

UPDATE 12:00 p.m. (4/2): Juniper offers this statement: "Juniper is a Silver member of the OpenDaylight Foundation.  We are committed to the premise that an open source ecosystem focused on interoperability provides a great avenue for innovation in the industry. We are involved in many open-technology organizations and standards bodies and participate in not only ODPL but also organizations such as OPNFV, ONF, as well as our efforts in OpenContrail. We continuously evaluate where we can have the biggest impact for our customers as well as where we believe the need is for the marketplace. This enables us to best allocate Juniper’s contributions to these organizations while still addressing the unique network architecture requirements of our customers."

(Photo by Thangaraj Kumaravel on Flickr, Creative Commons 2.0 license.)