Real Deal On Diane Greene - EMC Wanted Her Out

Ok the Diane Greene situation at VMWare is playing out. The spin from EMC on Diane Greene leaving is that this was due to taking on Microsoft.

Diane is a highly respected CEO and key player at VMWare. When EMC got VMWare on what will be one of the best deals of the century $600 Million, EMC made “bank” on the VMWare acquistion while the employees didn’t make much at all (except a few early employees). If VMWare stood alone it would be a $20billion dollar company and all the employees would have done very well. The reality is EMC is in charge, but some are arguing that VMWare is a better asset in the emgering cloud computing model.

In researching this around Silicon Valley the story is that EMC wanted Diane gone - outa here. Problem is that her husband Mendal is a key player in the VMWare community.  Now she is gone and the stock is plummeting.  That speaks volumes of this move.  EMC better bring on the spin.

Here are some nice nuggets from IDG story on Demo.com

IDG reports the following “t’s the “classic innovator’s dilemma,” says Avian Securities analyst Jeffrey Gaggin. “She’s an engineer, she’s not a seasoned and savvy CEO type.”

Greene’s husband and co-founder, Mendel Rosenblum, will apparently stay on as chief scientist. Rosenblum and Greene declined an interview request.

Even with Maritz, it might be difficult to fight off Microsoft. Nine out of 10 guest operating systems that run on VMware are Windows servers, notes Burton Group analyst Richard Jones.

If an enterprise is running Windows already, why not use Microsoft’s new virtualization software, Hyper-V?

“It’s hard to say if [Greene] would have done any better of a job than Paul Maritz,” Gaggin says. “I think it’s going to be tough for them to fight off the Microsoft threat. … VMware is a single-product company trying to compete with a giant in their backyard, because the operating system environment is Microsoft’s bread and butter.”