VMware's Top vCloud Air Sales And Marketing Exec Resigns, Longtime EMC Exec Takes Over

Riccardo Di Blasio, senior vice president of worldwide sales and marketing for vCloud Air, has resigned from his position at the Palo Alto, Calif.-based vendor, sources told CRN Thursday.

A VMware spokesman confirmed Di Blasio's departure in an email to CRN.

"Riccardo Di Blasio has decided to leave VMware. We thank Riccardo for his considerable contributions to VMware during his time here, and we wish him the best in his next endeavor," said the spokesman.

[Related: Sources Say VMware Cutting Back On vCloud Air Development, May Stop Work On New Features]

Bob Scordino, senior sales director for VMware's vCloud Air business in the Americas, is taking over for Di Blasio, according to the VMware spokesman. Scordino has been with VMware since May 2014, and previously spent 24 years in sales positions at EMC.

Di Blasio, who joined VMware in January 2013, has been at the forefront of the vendor's efforts to parlay its dominance in private cloud software into a similar position in the public cloud market. The sources said it's unclear where Di Blasio is headed next, and he couldn't be reached for comment.

VMware hasn't shared sales figures for vCloud Air, which launched in May 2013, but partners have told CRN it lacks key features and is attracting little interest from customers, in part because of the dominance of Amazon Web Services, and to a lesser extent, Microsoft Azure.

Sources told CRN last month that VMware has either stopped development on vCloud Air or will soon do so, including work on additional features. More recently, sources have said they expect VMware parent company EMC to combine vCloud Air with Virtustream, the cloud startup it acquired in July.

Sources told CRN in March that VMware was considering hiring a global sales chief to help accelerate the closing of enterprise licensing agreements, and that Di Blasio was in the running for that job.

Before joining VMware, Di Blasio spent 13 years at EMC, where he held a number of sales executive positions in Italy, Brazil and the U.K., according to his LinkedIn profile. He was senior vice president of sales and alliances for EMC's cloud service providers before joining VMware.

Di Blasio is also an angel investor for a number of Silicon Valley based startups. One is Nebia, which is developing a new type of shower head that its founders say uses 70 percent less water than traditional ones. Apple CEO Tim Cook and Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt are also investors.

PUBLISHED SEPT. 24, 2015