I’ve been reading some of the coverage of the Diane Greene/Paul Maritz swap today, as well as the new revenue projections. I first caught Om Malik’s take, read Bernd Harzog’s comments on Paul Maritz, and then went from Adam Lashinsky’s blog post to his October 2007 Fortune article on Greene. Something there caught my eye (in bold):
Tucci chairs VMware’s board, which is stacked with EMC people; of the six members, three are current or former EMC executives and two are EMC directors. (Greene is the sixth.) Greene appears bemused she has stayed on; as her husband points out, “If you look at her résumé, this is far longer than any other job she has ever held.” Her contract, signed in late July, is for only one year. “We have not discussed how long she intends to be there,” Tucci says.
Ignoring the speculation about Greene being fired, it’s relatively common for a founder to step aside or out as the company grows, handing over the reins to someone with more experience at running big companies. Jerry Yang is also a good example of this, as Yahoo! falters and their stock price tumbles while it struggles for better leadership. Given that one of VMware’s biggest competitors is now Microsoft, Paul Maritz might be an excellent choice given his history there and continuing work in cloud computing.
Personally, though, considering my less than stellar opinion of EMC’s products and support, and my enthusiasm for VMware products and technology, I’m hoping that EMC knows what they’re doing here.
Thanks for pointing out that bit from my article. I hadn’t thought to re-read it myself.