As you may have heard, former Borland CEO Tod "I only need one 'd'"  Nielsen has joined VMware as its new COO,teaming up with his old Microsoft cronie Paul Maritz to kick the virtualization company up a few notches. At a time not so long ago, VMware had been enjoying what many called a monopoly over the virtualization market, serving as the go-to company for all things virtual. However, that changed significantly as Microsoft elbowed its way into the party with its Hyper-V hypervisor.

On top of that, VMware's image took a bit of a hit when co-founder husband and wife team Diane Greene and Mendel Rosenblum left the company in 2008, along with some other notable executives like Richard Sarwal, who headed up research and development. VMware looked a bit leaderless, with only new President and CEO Paul Maritz steering the wheel. Maritz is more well-known for his technical skills and savvy, having helped develop the x86 platform while working for Intel and then heading up big Microsoft projects like Windows 95 and Internet Explorer.

Nonetheless, it remains to be seen how Maritz will handle the challenge from Microsoft in the virtualization market. Bringing in Nielsen, who is also a well-known, respected veteran software executive can help VMware gain back some of the leadership respect it might have lost when Greene and Rosenblum left, at least from purely an image standpoint. But Nielsen is a lot more than just a replacement to those folks. Nielsen has worked on both the technical and marketing side of some of the bigger companies in the software industry, including Borland, Microsoft, Oracle and BEA Systems.

Additionally, Tod shares a last name with many other renown Nielsens, including the lovely actress Connie of "Gladiator" and "Devil's Advocate" fame, 1980's action star and current reality TV disaster Brigitte, Danish ice hockey player Frans, "Airplane!" funny man Leslie, and probably more appropriately, theoretical physicist Holger Bech, known for his contributions to theoretical particle physics. So Tod is in fine company when it comes to his last name.     

The combination of Maritz and Nielsen, who have experience collaborating, should help VMware remain strong.