As many of you have heard by now, Paul Mauritz is out as CEO of VMware, and Pat Gelsinger (formerly COO of EMC, reporting directly to Joe Tucci) is replacing him.
The relevant question for those of us who care passionately about Oracle virtualization using VMware vSphere is:
What does this mean for VMware's BCA (Business Critical Applications: stuff like Oracle) strategy (which under Maritz was somewhat lacking)?
In my view, this is very, very good news indeed. The reason is simple: Paul Maritz was former Microsoft, and thus very Microsoft-centric. Under Maritz, VMware very successfully penetrated the Microsoft space (especially Exchange). BCA, and especially Oracle were not that well supported by VMware's high level leadership in my view.
There is no question in my mind that Pat Gelinger gets it with respect to the importance of Oracle for VMware's future. (As I have said before, I believe that Oracle is the most interesting virtualization target environment for VMware, period.)
Gelsinger has shown consistent interest in Oracle, as his presentation at Oracle OpenWorld 2011 shows. (His co-presentation which included a vCenter demo with Chad Sakac at OOW 2011 is classic.)
We wish Pat Gelinger the very best in his new role and have high hopes for him as the leader of VMware.
