Page 2 of 2: What Maritz May Bring

Satoshi Nakajima, who worked for Maritz at Microsoft as lead software architect for Windows 95, said he was surprised to hear about the appointment. But he noted that Maritz's knowledge of the enterprise software market makes him a good fit for VMware.

"Paul Maritz was the reason Microsoft shifted more of their business to the enterprise side. He saw there was a lot more opportunity to make money from enterprises than consumers as far as the revenue per machine Microsoft could make," he told InternetNews.com.

Nakajima, who is currently president of Big Canvas, a startup working on software for Apple's iPhone, said the shift could signal more deals to come.

"I think they (Microsoft) should forget about Yahoo and buy VMware," said Nakajima. Maritz knows Steve Ballmer, and who knows, this whole thing could be setting the stage for Microsoft to do a deal," he told InternetNews.com.

Meanwhile, there have been rumors that EMC is looking to sell its majority stake. Whether the shake-up stirs up the grapevine again is now up to Maritz to handle.

With Greene gone, VMware may lose some key staff. "I think it'll be interesting to see what happens over the next quarter at VMware because there's a lot of loyalty in the organization between her and her staff," said GlassHouse's Northcutt.

The question of whether the shake-up will see changes in the VMware ecosystem weighs on observers' minds, and Netuitive's Sanna issued a veiled warning about this: "I am sure they will continue supporting the partners because they need to play nice with the rest of the ecosystem," he said.

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One thing that is known about the South African-born Maritz is his competitive nature. He may be remembered the most for reportedly saying Microsoft would "cut off Netscape's air supply" back when Netscape had the leading Internet browser. During the Department of Justice's antitrust case against Microsoft, Maritz denied ever making the comment.

David Needle contributed to this story.

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