VMware co-founder calls it quits, shares hit lowest since IPO
Mendel Rosenblum, a VMware co-founder along with his wife and former chief executive Diane Greene, resigned his post Tuesday, according to a story posted Tuesday at virtualization.info. The move was not a surprise, coming as it did two months after Greene, who led the company since its founding in 1998, was removed as CEO by the board the first week of July.
So why did it take so long for Rosenblum — described in the article as the “company visionary” — to quit after his wife was sacked, especially as the board had the temerity to offer him his wife’s seat on the board? (The couple is pictured here in a photo accompanying an article about them last October in Fortune by former colleague Adam Lashinsky.)
First of all, he took a month of vacation right after his wife’s July sacking. The article also surmises that the announcement of his leaving may have been postponed at the request of VMware until registration for the upcoming VMworld 2008 conference was almost complete.
The New York Times reports today that that Paul Chan, VMware’s vice president of product development, will leave the company next month, after “quietly” resigning in August.
VMware shares closed Tuesday down $2.44, or 7 percent, to $32.47, after touching as low as $31.51, their lowest point since they were first offered to the public in August 2007 for $29 each.
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This company is so clueless. They send out emails saying please think about the environment before you print this e-mail, yet they book a conference in Las Vegas? One of the worst cities for the environment there is. Hello? On top of that the VMWorld 2008 party is being held at the Las Vegas race track where geeks can drink all the beer that they want and climb behind the wheel of a race car and drive 140+ miles per hour…ummm talk about stupid. So of course they would offer the husband the fired wifes job, they have no morals or tact.
Oh and VM’s Swag this year free beer, hello I thought they wanted to teach classes on their product, kinda hard to teach a bunch of drunk geeks. Or maybe that’s the point. Get them drunk so that they don’t know how horrible the product is? Or maybe VM had nothing new to offer and figured drunks just wouldn’t care as long as they had booze and chicks. Either way, this is not my favorite company. Never has been. Think it should be shut down along with many many others.