VMware CEO Maritz headed for new role at EMC

Virtualisation giant VMware has confirmed that CEO Paul Maritz will be leaving the vendor to take up the role of chief strategist at the firm's parent company EMC.

Maritz will be replaced by Pat Gelsinger, EMC's chief operating officer, after four years at the helm of VMware, but will remain on the firm's board of directors.

Speculation about the senior management changes had been circulating since Monday, with US channel site,CRN US, revealing that Maritz was leaving the firm.

Gelsinger will be succeeded at EMC by David Goulden, the vendor's executive vice president and chief financial officer.

We aim to continue to serve you to the best of our ability.

In a letter to customers on the VMware site, co-signed by Gelsinger and Maritz, the pair said, despite the change in management, they are still both committed to helping enterprise firms embrace cloud.

"We aim to continue to serve you to the best of our ability by listening and providing the best products and services that we can," said the letter.

"Between the two of us, in our respective roles, we have met many of you and hope to continue these relationships and build new ones as we go forward."

Maritz and Gelsinger will start in their new roles on 1 September 2012. Both execs had previously been tipped to take over from EMC CEO, Joe Tucci, when he retires.

In a statement, Tucci described the pair as world-class leaders.

"I want to personally thank and congratulate Paul for all he's accomplished over the past four years helping transform VMware from a technology leader in virtualisation to an industry leader in cloud computing, and I'm excited that he'll now be working full time on these new opportunities," he added.

To coincide with the news, VMware also released preliminary details about its forthcoming second quarter results, which suggest the firm is on course to post record quarterly revenues of $1.12 billion on 23 July.