Robin Wauters

Gene Fay Leaves EMC, Joins VKernel As Top Sales Guy

July 8, 2008 by Robin Wauters Leave a Comment

After Diane Greene leaving VMware, in comes the story of Gene Fay joining VKernel (check our earlier coverage) as Vice President of Sales. Fay was vice president of worldwide sales and global alliances for the security information and event management (SIEM) business unit of RSA, the Security Division of EMC. He joined EMC after the company acquired Network Intelligence where he was vice president of business development.

Gene seems to be happy with the decision he made:

“I have watched the virtualization space explode over the last five years,” said Gene Fay, “With our innovative virtual appliances for systems management, a very hot market, and a great team, VKernel offers a fantastic opportunity to work with customers who are rapidly virtualizing their data centers and partners that are helping them through the process.”

[Source: PRNewswire]

Invisible Things Lab: Hypervisors Mucho Hackable

July 8, 2008 by Robin Wauters Leave a Comment

Security researchers from Invisible Things Lab claim will be demonstrating how easy it is to hack hypervisors at the next Black Hat conference in Las Vegas in August. More specifically, they’ll be discussing the (in)security of the Xen hypervisor, such as how to plant rootkits, how to bypass various hypervisor anti-subverting techniques, as well as how “Bluepills” (ah, that rang a bell) can be used in bare-metal hypervisor compromises. They plan on releasing proof-of-concept code.

From the Invisible Things blog:

The three presentations have been designed in such a way that they complement each other and create one bigger entirety, thus they can be referred as “Xen 0wning Trilogy” for brevity.

The three presentations that are mentioned, are the following:

Should be interesting!

On a sidenote, this caveat in the Invisible Things Lab blog post is an interesting statement on its own:

It’s worth noting that we chose Xen as the target not because we think it’s insecure and worthless. On the contrary, we believe Xen is the most secure bare-metal hypervisor out there (especially with all the goodies in the upcoming Xen 3.3). Still we believe that it needs some improvements when it comes to security. We hope that our presentations will help making Xen (and similar hypervisors) more secure.

Do you agree?

[Source: Information Week]

Breaking: Diane Greene Leaves VMware, Paul Maritz To Become CEO and President

July 8, 2008 by Robin Wauters 13 Comments

VMware co-founder Diane Greene (see BusinessWeek profile) has been ousted as president and chief executive of the company and will be replaced by former Microsoft executive Paul Maritz (we reported on him joining EMC’s cloud computing division earlier this year), effective immediately. The company also said that while it “is not updating guidance for the second quarter, we expect revenues for the full year of 2008 will be modestly below the previous guidance of 50% growth over 2007.” The mean estimate of analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial was for 51% growth to $2 billion.

Shares of the virtualization software maker went tumbling in recent trading. The stock was recently down 24.3% to $40.26 a share. Shares have fallen by two-thirds the past eight months. The stock went public at $29 and rocketed in its first two months of trading to as high as $125 a share.

On Fortune.com’s Go West blog, Adam Lashinsky writes that VMware “was so loved by investors that it singlehandedly drove the valuation of EMC, whose best move this decade may have been buying VMware before it had the opportunity to go public the first time.”

Things change. VMware stock is falling big time since the news got out.

It’s highly likely that EMC has replaced Diane Greene because of the poor revenue outlook. Also worth noting is that we reported a rumor earlier today about VMware possibly being fully spun out of EMC (which now becomes highly unlikely, considering Paul Maritz’ track record).

We’ll post more details as soon as they’re available. We’re wondering how the VMware troops will react on the news, and what will happen with Mendel Rosenblum, Chief Scientist at VMware and Greene’s husband.

This is the official take from the company’s chairman, Joe Tucci:

“As one of the founders and the leader of VMware, Diane guided the creation and development of a company that is changing the way that people think about computing,” Tucci said in the statement. “The Board thanks her for her considerable contributions to VMware and wishes her every success in the future.”

Reuters has a comment from Jefferies and Co analyst Katherine Egbert, who was disappointed the company did not hold a conference call to explain why it was cutting its revenue forecast.

“She said she suspects VMware is concerned that sales of its server virtualization software will get squeezed by new competition from Microsoft, which late last month started selling a rival product. Microsoft introduced that product, which costs far less than VMware’s offering, six weeks ahead of its previously announced launch date.”

Update: VMwareVideos reminded us of this video of Diane Greene talking about VMworld.

They also found this one featuring the new CEO and President, Paul Maritz, an ex-Microsoft Corp executive, reflecting on what it’s like to have Bill Gates review your stuff.

[Source: MarketWatch]

VMware Online Store Now Has Academic Discounts on Workstation and Fusion

July 8, 2008 by Robin Wauters Leave a Comment

For current students, prospective university students, or academic faculty and staff, VMware has just made it easier to purchase VMware Workstation or VMware Fusion at an academic discount. Through the all new academic portal, students can get a discount to up to 50% off the commercial list pricing if they purchase VMware Workstation or VMware Fusion for personal use.

Previously, the only way to get access to VMware Fusion or VMware Workstation at their academic prices was to purchase at an outlet like a campus book store that happened to stock the software.

EMC Shares Up On VMware Spin-out Rumors

July 8, 2008 by Robin Wauters Leave a Comment

Update: you might want to read this article about VMware co-founder Diane Greene leaving VMware before you read this post. Come back, though 😉

Financial analyst Thomas Curlin of RBC Capital Markets upped his rating on the EMC stock to “Outperform” from “Sector Perform”, even as it trimmed the stock’s price target from $21 to a more modest $19. The focus of his call: the prospects for a spin-out of the company’s stake in VMware.

Curlin notes that the company can spin out VMware to shareholders with minimal tax implications starting in early 2009. In his research note, Curlin writes:

“Management recently has suggested it does not plan to spin out VMware, but if the stock remains at current levels, we believe it could be forced to do so by activist shareholders. This possible scenario is a key aspect of our recommendation upgrade as it provides downside protection in a challenging macro context.”

Curlin figures that EMC is trading at a value of about $6.25 ex its stake in VMW; but he thinks the non-VMW business is worth $10-$14 a share. Shares of EMC closed at $15.05.

[Source: Tech Trader Daily]