Going, Going, Greene
Diane Greene, whose name is synonymous with VMware, is
out
of a job, replaced by Microsoft vet Peter Maritz.
VMware founder Greene has been a good friend of the Redmond Media Group. Editor
Ed Scannell interviewed Greene twice in recent months, once for a cover
story in Redmond magazine and again for a cover
story in Virtualization Review.
VMware is riding high, but has some huge challenges. Its biggest issue: pricing.
Right now, VMware is more full-featured than Hyper-V, but also far more expensive.
The Rhodesian-born Maritz is a bit of an inside pick. His cloud computing company,
Pi Corp., was recently acquired by VMware owner EMC, and it was Joe Tucci, EMC
chief and VMware chairman of the board, who made the announcement of Greene's
departure (er, dismissal).
I interacted a fair amount with Maritz during his 14 years at Microsoft. He
always came across as intensely bright and intensely competitive. The tough-as-nails
Maritz also got into hot water during the antitrust prosecution of Microsoft
after reportedly threatening to "cut off Netscape's air supply," something
Microsoft effectively did.
Now Maritz is on the other side, defending VMware against Hyper-V which is
essentially bundled with an OS. Will Microsoft cut off Maritz's air supply?
Will there be a détente? Will Microsoft buy VMware? Your answers welcome
at [email protected].
Our best wishes go out to Diane who did an amazing job and was always kind
to our group of magazines.
Posted by Doug Barney on July 09, 2008