VMware plans realignment, continues hiring freeze

By James Niccolai and Stephen Lawson

October 27, 2008 12:00 PM ET

Top Stories

Computerworld - VMware Inc. CEO Paul Maritz said last week that a hiring freeze that started in the third quarter will "continue into the fourth quarter, and frankly into 2009 as well."

During a conference call to discuss the company's third-quarter financial results, Maritz also unveiled plans to realign the business to ride out the current worldwide economic instability and to help transform VMware from a start-up to a mature software company.

The company had announced the hiring freeze -- or "pause," as Maritz called it -- in July. He said last week that it will help VMware "take stock and make sure we have people focused on the right areas."

Maritz said the realignment calls for dividing the company into business units based on product lines, each headed by a senior executive.

He wouldn't elaborate on the division plan, except to say that they will have separate research and development groups but will share a common sales and marketing operation.

"We're still working our way through the details; our intent is to have [the realignment] ready and implemented as we go into 2009," Maritz said.

The moves come despite solid third-quarter results -- revenue of $472 million, up 32% from the same period last year, and profits of $83.3 million, up from $64.7 million in 2007.

As for next year, Maritz said that "it's too soon to say what will happen in 2009" in terms of customer spending.

Meanwhile, VMware's majority owner, EMC Corp., reported that its third-quarter revenue grew 13% to $3.7 billion. EMC's profits for the quarter totaled $411 million, down from $493 million during the same period last year.

In a conference call after the results were released, EMC President and CEO Joe Tucci said that the stock-market meltdown and the weak credit market caused some big companies to postpone purchases in late September. Tucci added that he expects IT spending to grow between 1% and 3% in 2009.

EMC is forecasting fourth-quarter revenue of $4 billion, up from $3.8 billion last year.

James Niccolai and Stephen Lawson write for the IDG News Service.

This version of the story originally appeared in Computerworld's print edition.

Got something to add? Let us know in the article comments.

Comment Recommend Digg Twitter ShareThis

Email Print Send Feedback Reprints

Additional Resources

Xerox

Win a color printer!

By using solid ink technology only from Xerox, you could save up to 65% by printing color for the cost of black and white. Enter for a chance to WIN a PhaserTM 8860 network color printer!

Microsoft

Upgrade to Internet Explorer 8 today.

Save time and mitigate security risk. Deploy it now.

Sybase

NEXT-GENERATION MOBILITY PLATFORMS

In this white paper, IDC analyzes the role of next-generation mobile enterprise platforms as organizations seek a more strategic deployment of mobile solutions.

Learn the important issues you must consider before starting your next mobility initiative. Get your mobility white paper from IDC now, compliments of Sybase.

What People Are Saying

1 comments | Add new

See all comments (1) | Add new

White Papers & Webcasts

The High Performance Workplace
In this paper we examine the challenges and define the critical steps CFOs, CIOs, COOs and CEOs, in midsized global companies, can take...

Best Practices for Model-based Systems Engineering
Based on a small set of key principles and practices from the IBM®Rational® Harmony™ library of best practices, the Harmony for Systems Engineering...

Extend, Replace, or Convert; which is the best way forward for COBOL Applications?
There are a number of choices when looking at ways to take existing COBOL applications forward. This white paper discusses the most common...

How to Reduce Eclipse BIRT Development Effort for Data Visualizations
Web applications can come with a long list of visualization requirements for structured data. By delivering your output through the BIRT Interactive Viewer,...

The 2009 Handbook of Application Delivery
Ensuring acceptable application delivery will become even more difficult over the next few years. As a result, IT organizations need to ensure that...

Accelerating Your Mobile Workers: Controlling the Uncontrollable
Today's workforce is truly mobile. Unlike the managed environment of the office LAN, remote users face many challenges to being productive while out...

ESG - Re-architecting Disaster Recovery Solutions
Disaster Recovery (DR) is a critical component of IT and risk mitigation strategies, and compounded in difficulty by ever growing data volumes, distributed...

Disaster Recovery 2008: Reduced Costs and Improved Performance
How long can your Enterprise afford to be without your data? With an accelerated disaster recovery program, you never have to answer this...

Evaluating the ROI of Riverbed Steelhead Products: A How-To Guide
Return on Investment is a complex, but necessary challenge when validating technology purchases. ROI often involves the analysis of hard-cost trade-offs and soft-cost...

Systems and Software Product Line Engineering with SysML, UML and the Rhapsody/Gears Bridge
One of the great challenges and opportunities in systems and software delivery today is Product Line Engineering - creating, evolving and maintaining a...

All White Papers | All Webcasts