Q&A: VMware's Maritz Discusses Clouds And Fending Off Microsoft

Paul Maritz, president and CEO of VMware, sat down with Everything Channel Senior Editor Joseph F. Kovar at this week's VMworld 2008 conference in Las Vegas to talk about how VMware planned to stay ahead of Microsoft, how the channel fits in with cloud computing, the departure of former VMware President and CEO Diane Green, and much more.

How has the recent departure of (VMware co-founder and former President and CEO) Diane Green and (co-founder and former VMware Chief Scientist) Mendel Rosenblum impacted VMware?

There were a lot of people sorry to see them go. They founded the company, and had strong personal relationships with many people there. So that was difficult.

Paul Maritz

I have been spending a lot of my time trying to reach out and talk to people and convince them that the reasons that they came to VMware in the first place aren't going to change. I'm a strong believer that the kind of people who are at VMware bear similarities to the people I got to work with when I was at Microsoft in its heyday. People here are very intense, passionate people who like working on hard problems, and not just solving them, but solving them in the form of products that people can use. That will continue, and they will have an environment where they feel that they can get that work done. And I think if we can do that, we'll get through this transition and can go on to the very big challenges that we have laid out over this conference.

VMware is a much larger company than it was even two years ago. Are we seeing a new stage of maturity at VMware?

Well, I certainly hope so, in the positive sense. I don't think we have to become, quote unquote, a big company. But, at the same time, our customers have told us very clearly that we're now a strategic partner of theirs. We have 70-plus CIOs sitting across the road at a parallel CIO event that we're running with VMworld. And the fact that they've take time out of their schedules to come here and be with us is a testimony to that. And when you have that kind of relationship with customers, you obviously have to behave at a new level of maturity. They've very clearly explained to us that they're gonna make decisions based on things that have to happen in their worlds three or four years from now. And those decisions will be based on decisions we're making now. So we better make them in full consultation with (the CIOs), and understand where they're coming from and where they're going to.

How big are their companies?

Pretty big. I just had lunch next door with the CIO of one of the big resort operators here in Las Vegas, and he has a pretty mind-blowing operation.

Oh, I'll bet. I shouldn't say I wanna bet in Las Vegas. Wrong place to say that. . . .

That's what he wants you to say. In fact, he knows how much you're betting.

Well, he ain't getting anything from me this trip...When Diane Greene left the company, does Joe Tucci's role in her departure signify a change in the VMware and EMC relationship?

(Editor's note: Tucci is chairman, president, and CEO of storage vendor EMC, which owns a majority stake in VMware. As chairman of VMware, Tucci was responsible for replacing Greene with Maritz.)

The answer is no. You can't get any simpler than that.

As you look over your shoulder at Microsoft Hyper-V and Citrix XenServer, how do you see the impact of those companies

We clearly take competition, particularly from Microsoft, very seriously. They're a very well-funded company, a very competitive company, and they have very deep technology and relationships with customers. So we obviously have to pay a lot of attention to them.

That being said, (VMware) has a great foundation and we intend to stay ahead. And I think that we have a different vision of the future than what Microsoft does.

Microsoft has a very Microsoft-centric vision of the future, and we believe that the benefits of this new layer of software that we're calling the Virtual Data Center Operating System can and should be developed and delivered in an application load in an independent fashion. People are not going to want to run just today's Windows applications, but future applications as well that may or may not involve Microsoft.

Given Microsoft's history in terms of targeting a market and often then steamrolling the competition, what's your strategy to prevent that?

Two things. One, you have to identify real needs that your customers want you to work on. And then you have to execute really well against [those needs]. I know enough about Microsoft to respect them on the one hand, but not be rolled over by them on the other hand. Microsoft has by no means won every battle that it went into.

Next: Maritz On What VMware Does Better Than Microsoft