Forbes interviewed newly appointed VMware CEO and Microsoft vet Paul Maritz after last night’s earnings call. To read the full interview, click here. This is the most interesting excerpt as far as we’re concerned:
Microsoft’s Hyper-V hypervisor, software that separates hardware from operating systems and applications inside computer servers, is virtually free. How do you plan to compete with that?
We don’t see the need to lower our price points. But that said, we created lower price SKUs for our customers.
Hyper V is really just one layer and it corresponds to our ESXi. Our customers no longer pay for that. What they pay us for is the software that sits on top of that. Microsoft is not there yet. They don’t have the virtual infrastructure suite that we have.
What strategies from Microsoft will you use at VMware?
When you reach the size that VMware’s reached, in order to capitalize on opportunities, you have to be able to operate on multiple fronts. Find elements [that have made VMware successful], reinforce them and fill in with other tactics and tools. Create the ability to have empowered teams that can execute on multiple fronts. They just need to take their game up to the next level. I spent five years at Intel before Microsoft. I’m well schooled in Andy Grove’s doctrine that only the paranoid survive.
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