As the No. 3 executive at Microsoft, Paul Maritz presided over the company’s Windows juggernaut, turned aside threats from Netscape and Sun Microsystems, and pressed the company to embrace the Internet. Now, the longtime software executive is looking down Microsoft’s barrel from the other end, trying to help his new employer, VMware, triumph where past Microsoft competitors fell short.
In his new role, Maritz is leading VMware’s charge in the mounting battle over cloud computing, the trend that’s leading companies to shift computing power away from their own machines and into the hands of tech powerhouses such as Microsoft, Google, Amazon.com, and Salesforce.com. VMware wants to be a player in cloud computing, too, and Maritz, CEO since July, is undertaking a major engineering project to try to get there. “That says to Microsoft, ‘We’re coming right after you,'” says Jason Noland, an analyst at Robert W. Baird who has a neutral rating on VMware.
VMware needs some victories. In less than a year, VMware has gone from hypergrowth business success story and stock market darling to a company whose slowing growth and plummeting shares led to the ouster of its former CEO and co-founder Diane Greene. Shares of VMware slumped 1.22, or 5 percent, to 22 on Nov. 12.
VMware held 2007’s most successful initial public offering by specializing in virtualization software that helps companies cut costs by making more efficient use of their computers. Now, VMware needs to show customers and investors that it can move beyond virtualization and remain worthy of a chunk of companies’ tight tech budgets while avoiding a competitive onslaught from Microsoft. “If VMware just coasts on its past achievements and lets Microsoft catch up, it will have a problem,” says a former Microsoft executive, who asked not to be identified as he maintains ties to Maritz. “But…