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VMware co-founder Mendel Rosenblum resigns


By Jeff Feinman
September 10, 2008 — 
VMware has seen yet another key executive leave the company, as co-founder and chief scientist Mendel Rosenblum has handed in his resignation.

Rosenblum, who is the husband of former CEO and VMware co-founder Diane Greene, resigned Tuesday evening, leaving two months after his wife was dismissed and a little over a week after Richard Sarwal, executive vice president of research and development, quit the company to return to Oracle. Rosenblum is expected to focus on his job as a professor at Stanford University, where he obtained his engineering degree.

“I was somewhat surprised that he didn’t leave sooner,” said Charles King, principal analyst with Pund-IT. “It had to have been difficult with his wife leaving the company a couple of months ago. It’s always great for your founders to be with the company for as long as possible, but executive turnover in the IT industry is expected.”

VMware, the clear leader of the virtualization market for a number of years, has undergone a big management change in recent months. Former Microsoft senior executive Paul Maritz was first brought in when EMC, which also owns VMware, acquired his company, Pi Corporation, in February. Maritz initially became president of EMC’s Cloud Computing division, but was named CEO of VMware to replace Greene in early July.

At this point, VMware is still the company to beat with the most sophisticated virtualization solutions available today, King said. He noted that he doesn’t expect any significant cultural changes to occur at VMware, and it would be a mistake to try to institute major changes. VMware is an engineering-proven company, and Maritz should preserve that in every way he can, King said.

“I think issues [Maritz] needs to attack over the next few months would be to give a solid sense of where the company is today and a blueprint for where VMware is headed in the future, and how he intends to take the company that way,” King said. “Obviously, VMware’s got some major competitors. Any time you have companies, including Microsoft, Oracle and Citrix, breathing down your neck, you’ve got to keep an eye out.”

Laura DiDio, a senior analyst with the Yankee Group, said that with growing competition from Microsoft and its Hyper-V hypervisor, VMware needs leaders with more marketing knowledge rather than Greene's and Rosenblum’s engineering backgrounds. “Great marketing combined with so-so technology will get you further [and] faster than great technology with so-so marketing,” DiDio said.

Rosenblum and his wife founded the company in 1998, and he served as the company’s chief scientist and advisor. He is credited for helping to create the x86 virtualization market.

“His technical legacy and influence on VMware, both the company and the many engineers whom he mentored, will continue long into the future,” said Mary Ann Gallo, a VMware spokeswoman. “He will be missed and we all wish him the very best.”


Related Search Term(s): virtualization, VMware


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