VMware COO Carl Eschenbach has resigned (apparently to join a VC firm) amid continuing changes at the virtualization giant. Meanwhile, Maurizio Carli becomes executive vice president, worldwide sales -- and Channel Chief Ross Brown now reports to him. The changes arrive on week before a VMware Partner Leadership Summit in Scottsdale, Ariz.
VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger has spent recent months striving to better align VMware for hybrid cloud services and end-user computing. Instead of naming a new COO, Gelsinger said Eschenbach's responsibilities would be divvied up among:
- Maurizio Carli, is now executive vice president, worldwide sales, responsible for Americas, APJ and EMEA as well as pre-and post-sales engineering, and all worldwide channels. Global Channel Chief Ross Brown now reports to Carli, who most recently led VMware's Americas region overseeing strategic planning, business operations and the management of key functions including sales, channels, services and field marketing, the company said.
- Peter McKay will lead the Americas field organization moving forward. McKay most recently led the Americas Enterprise Segment and previously was COO for the Americas. He joined VMware as part of the Desktone acquisition in 2013.
- Ray O'Farrell has been promoted to executive vice president and will be expanding his role as chief technology officer and chief development officer to include responsibility for VMware's Global Services and Customer Advocacy, giving O'Farrell purview over VMware's entire customer product experience.
- Sanjay Poonen, executive vice president and general manager, End-User Computing, will expand his role to also lead the company's worldwide marketing and communications functions.
"With the executive changes we are making today, as well as the recent addition of Zane Rowe as our new CFO, we are well positioned to continue helping our customers transition to the mobile-cloud era," Gelsinger said in a prepared statement.
Separately, Martin Casado earlier this month confirmed plans to leave VMware to join venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. Casado had led the company's network virtualization business, and was founder of Nicira, which VMware acquired for $1.26 billion in 2012.
VMware In Transition
VMware cut staff earlier this year amid slowing overall growth and anticipated weakness in its core virtualization business for 2016. And only days ago, Gelsinger has been working overtime to clarify VMware's overally hybrid cloud strategy and end-user computing efforts.
The changes come amid Dell's pending buyout of VMware's parent, EMC. That deal has received regulatory approval in the US and Europe. Dell is working with bankers to line up financing for the $67 billion deal, which is expected to close between May and October 2016.
As for VMware, the company is striving to develop multi-cloud management tools, rather than competing head-on against Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure in the public cloud sector.
Up next: VMware Partner Leadership Summit -- designed for top partners -- kicks off March 6 in Arizona. The event is closed to the press.
Article Updated March 2, 2:00 p.m. ET: This article was updated to indicate that Ross Brown remains global channel chief, reporting to Carli.
