That was my initial thought as well. CRI-O hits 1.0, and then this. To me, it comes across as an attempt to stay in the news. Possibly to start changing the narrative from Docker vs Kubernetes to Docker <3's Kubernetes.

Docker's conference (Dockercon) is happening right now so announcements coming from them are no surprise. A Kubernetes integration has probably been in the works for a while.

It seems more likely to me that the CRI-O 1.0 announcement was a tactical move from Red Hat to hijack the conversation during Docker's own conference. CoreOS did the same thing 3 years ago when they announced rkt, trying to capitalize on Dockercon as a time to make a bunch of noise for themselves. Docker themselves have been no perfect angels in this regard, for instance with their infamous "accept no imitations" shirt at Red Hat's conference, I'm just calling it as I see it.

Disclaimer: I worked for Docker, Inc. for 3 years.