Take 2 executives who were frustrated at Microsoft and put them together in an opportunity to compete, and watch out. Microsoft now not only has to compete on technical and marketing with VMware, they need to compete against their executive team on strategy.
I’ve searched for Charles’s presence in VMware, but he is hidden which means either he is busy inside VMware or my facts are wrong. If I had to place a bet, Charles is staying under the radar not telling anyone what he is planning at VMware.
Update 9:19a, Aug 7, 2008.
I missed Mary Jo’s post that had the tip of Charles at PiCorp.
According to a few different sources who asked not to be named, Maritz has hired Charles Fitzgerald, Microsoft’s former head of Platform Strategy, to work at Smart Desktop, a division of Martiz’s Pi Corp.
Fitzgerald resigned from Microsoft in January 2008 and neither Microsoft nor Fitzgerald himself would comment on where he was going.
(I tried contacting Smart Desktop to see if Fitzgerald was hired, to no avail. I also tried e-mailing Fitzgerald, but so far, no reply.)
My analysis on this development:
Microsoft apparently has some clear plans and objectives. Yahoo's failed bid, Hyper-V's plans in Cloud, Midori's secret venture and all that is definitely is being looked at its collective strategy to go to the web. Executive who pushed Yahoo's bid too left unceremoniously. So a shuffle is taking place there.
EMC, on the other hand, too is forced to reconfigure VMware and its very own strategy and vision. New leadership may be one of them.
Can Charles or Paul prove successful with EMC/VMware/Pi/Cloud transition? Is being disgruntled enough to get back at the past employer? We don't know. What we do know is that the market is heading towards a collaborative and web-connected age, called Cloud Computing, mainly achieved by tools & technologies such as Web 2.0, Virtualization, Grids, Clouds. This all has to rest somewhere in the middle, we should start calling "Hybrid Computing" , meaning people want freedom but not willing to lose their data and if that is placed somewhere "safe" (still something the industry has to find a way to convince you and me), it should not come in my and your way of being and thriving as creative humans. T
That is the bigger challenge, companies like VMware are small bubbles in this emerging pattern and trend, there is more to it. So obviously being with a pioneer is one thing and being with a party that suddnely takes all kinds of detour to come to that one big highway is another. So that challenge is much bigger and even daunting to some.
Suddenly as we all move to the new computing era where all we care is that we get access to our Applications via some device such as iPhone, Nokia N95 or anything else and it should be secure as hell, we are looking at a market that suddenly is very deceptive, complex and highly individualistic.
That is what the new leadership needs to understand. We keep saying that Paul and Charles know Microsoft's dirty tricks, but have you thought about looking at it this way: "Microsoft knows now exactly what their ex-employees are up to or at least they do know where they are good at and where they aren't !"
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