Paul Maritz May Be on Short List of Future EMC CEOs

Could VMware’s outgoing CEO Paul Maritz be in line to take over as CEO at parent company EMC (News - Alert)? That’s what some industry analysts are speculating.

EMC’s current CEO, Joe Tucci plans to remain at his post until at least the end of 2013. But a recent e-mail Tucci sent to employees suggests the company is showing “visible steps” in “our long-standing executive succession plan.”

 In addition, Tucci has stated he wants to be replaced by an internal candidate, according to news reports. Tucci, 65, has praised Maritz in company statements.

In his new role, Maritz will work as “technology strategist” for EMC and remains a member of the VMware board. He will focus on “big data and a new generation of cloud-oriented applications.”

Maritz certainly had an impressive record at VMware. “All Maritz did was lead VMware to record income, world domination in the virtualization software industry, and innovation into new markets, such as mobility and cloud systems,” Chris Preimesberger comments in eWeek. “The company continues to hire people like there's no tomorrow and is in the process of doubling the size of its campus nestled in the Palo Alto (News - Alert) foothills above the Stanford University campus.”

In the meantime, Pat Gelsinger was named the new CEO of VMware. Gelsinger was the COO for information infrastructure at EMC. He officially takes over as CEO on Sept. 1.

“In Pat and Paul, we are fortunate to have two world-class leaders,” Tucci said in a company statement. “The strong teams that we now have in place at VMware and EMC allow me to ask Pat and Paul to take on two of the defining challenges and opportunities of the new, unfolding IT era: Cloud Infrastructure and big data. They have unique backgrounds and skills, and I look forward to continuing to work with both of them.”

“It’s clearly a move up for Gelsinger, and moving Maritz to EMC as strategist means they weren’t unhappy with him,” Mark Moerdler, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., added.

In other management news, EMC CFO, David Goulden was promoted to become the company’s president and chief operating officer, and remains CFO.

It was also reported that VMware saw preliminary Q2 results, with revenue of about $1.123 billion (a company record) and a 22 percent jump from revenue earned in the Q2 of 2011. The company has also announced revenue for all of 2012 to be between $4.540 billion and $4.635 billion.

In a related matter, VMware apparently wants to expand from virtualization software to cloud, storage and enterprise infrastructure.

VMware is also denying reports it may spin-off Cloud Foundry from EMC Greenplum. "The speculation about EMC and VMware's commitment to Cloud Foundry and Greenplum businesses are unfounded," VMware said in an internal memo, recently published by InformationWeek.

EMC owns 79 percent of VMware.

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