VMware readies for CEO Maritz's public debut

VMware  has faced some rather public upheaval over the past few months: the departures of founders Diane Greene and Mendel Rosenblum, big drops in stock prices, and an embarrassing technical mistake that temporarily prevented customers from logging on to virtual servers.

But on Tuesday, Paul Maritz, newly appointed president and CEO, will have his biggest opportunity yet to address public concerns about VMware and provide a road map for the future of virtualization. He’ll be delivering a keynote in front of 14,000 attendees at VMworld in Las Vegas, and will then answer questions in a Q&A session.

“This is going to be his coming-out party, the first VMworld where Maritz will be taking center stage,” says Charles King of the Pund-IT analyst firm. “It’s critical for him to get out in front of the large customers and VMware partners and let them know the VMware ship is still on course, that they’ve still got a terrific product. It will be critical for him to outline what long-term strategy the company is following and what steps the company is taking to get there.”

Maritz will use his keynote to lay out VMware’s major areas of focus and describe where the company is going in coming years, says Raghu Raghuram, vice president of VMware products and solutions.

VMware will also make about 10 formal announcements at VMworld and describe the major products it plans to release in 2009. Virtualization has “barely scratched the surface of what’s possible,” Raghuram says.

Maritz, a former Microsoft executive, came on board in July after the EMC-owned VMware fired co-founder and CEO Diane Greene. Greene’s husband, VMware chief scientist Mendel Rosenblum, resigned  from the company two months later.

King, who was surprised Rosenblum stayed as long as he did, says customers shouldn’t be concerned by changes at the top. Greene and Rosenblum led VMware from start-up to rock star status, but when a company becomes a powerhouse it faces a quite different set of challenges, he says.

“Executives leave companies on a very regular basis. It’s part of doing business frankly,” King says. “The dismissal of Diane Greene was a difficult thing, I think, for everybody involved. … [But] I think frankly Maritz is a great fit for the company right now.”

Maritz is an “excellent marketer” who had a lot to do with the success of Windows, says independent IT analyst Laura DiDio.

Maritz’s new battleground pits him against Microsoft and other budding virtualization vendors such as Citrix, Oracle, Virtual Iron and Sun. While its competitors typically offer cheaper prices, it’s generally agreed that VMware still has the most robust server virtualization technology.

“They have the advantage of starting out ahead [of competitors],” says VMware user Mitch Dysart, the IT director of operations and chief technology architect at Ohio State University. “I am very interested to see what they have in store for the future.”

King pinpointed VMware’s focus on high-availability technology to create more resilient IT infrastructures, and said he expects a lot more work on this front.