Diane Greene – OUT – “New Guy” IN

Today, VMware announced a huge change in their executive leadership – Diane Greene was “shown the door” and Paul Maritz was brought in as President and CEO – WOW! Diane Greene has been such a strong force at VMware – so visible at VMworld – and such a great promoter of the company (you can see her in the video below).

Who is this “new guy”? Let’s find out by looking at his bio-

Paul Maritz, President and CEO
Paul Maritz is President and CEO of VMware, Inc. Prior to joining VMware, Maritz was President, Cloud Infrastructure and Services Division at EMC Corporation. He joined EMC in February 2008 when EMC acquired Pi Corporation, where he was the founder and CEO.

Maritz is an IT veteran and visionary who spent 14 years working at Microsoft, where he served as a member of the five-person Executive Committee that managed the overall company. He oversaw the development and marketing of System Software Products (including Windows 95, Windows NT, and Windows 2000), Development Tools (Visual Studio) and Database Products (SQL Server), and the complete Office and Exchange Product Lines. Prior to joining Microsoft, he spent five years working at Intel Corporation.

Maritz is a graduate in Mathematics and Computer Science of the Universities of Cape Town and Natal in South Africa. Currently, he serves on the board of several privately-held software companies and also serves as Chairman of the Board of the Grameen Foundation, which supports microfinance around the world. He has an active interest in the use of technology in developing countries and in wildlife issues.

A Microsoft guy huh? Perhaps he knows how to crush Hyper-V with ESX Server? Let’s hope so 🙂

Even better than reading about him, let’s watch him on video!

For the official announcement, see: VMware Announces Change in Executive Leadership

What do you think this change will bring to VMware? Post your comments here!