As of the start of September this year, Paul Maritz will no longer run the world’s leader in virtualization technology – VMware.

Martiz will be succeeded by VMware’s current COO of parent company EMC’s Information Infrastructure Products division Pat Gelsinger.

The announcements was made as VMware released its preliminary second quarter financial results which showed the company – which has seen profits rise with the take up of cloud computing - called in record revenue of US$1.123bn.

VMware said revenues had risen 22% over its Q2 figures for 2011, results which pushed it above its guidance of US$1.1bn. It now expects its full-year 2012 revenue to be between US$4.50bn and US$4.635bn with non-GAAP operating margins between 30.25% and 31.25%.

Part of VMware’s success is down to Maritz’ four-year leadership, which saw VMware shift its focus towards the cloud computing market which relies heavily on virtualized environments, VMware Chairman Joe Tucci said.

“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 virtualization to an industry leader in cloud computing,” Tucci said.

Success through transformation

VMware is currently promoting what it calls the ‘software-driven data center’ which in its view turns the emphasis from hardware into software capabilities for automation and application delivery.

In January this year Maritz said customers now want more than just virtualization, they want to become more agile and to transform their overall business.

“2012 will be the year when we expect our customers to accelerate beyond virtualization in significant numbers and start operating in a cloud-like manner.”

This trend saw Maritz steer VMware in the direction of a complete infrastructure suite to address data center operations based on its vSphere technology which includes vCloud Director, vCloud Connector, vShield, vCenter Site Recovery and vSphere Storage Appliance.

"At a lower level, we believe infrastructure will become more automated, standardized and more consumed as a service," Maritz said.

The change in leadership

VMware was founded in 1988 in California and was acquired by EMC Corporation in 2004 and in 2007 it launched an IPO on the New York Stock Exchange.

Maritz, who had spent 14 years working on Microsoft’s executive committee and founded Pi Corporation, an early cloud-oriented company acquired by EMC, took the lead role at VMware in 2008.

When Gelsinger takes over, Martiz will remain on the board of directors but will also be taking on a new technology strategist role at EMC.

Before he joined EMC Gelsinger worked as a CTO at Intel and SVP and general manager of its Digital Enterprise Group.

Martiz said Gelsinger and Martiz have worked closely together on VMware’s transformation.

“Pat brings an ideal set of skills and experience to VMware, having served many years as a senior technologist and manager at Intel, and most recently at EMC,” Martiz said in a message to customers.

“Pat, with his deep passion for technology and track record, will complement the strong management team that is already in place at VMware, recently strengthened by the promotion of Carl Eschenbach to COO.

“This all means that I can devote my time to developing the strategy of EMC as it relates to big data and a new generation of cloud-oriented applications.”

Gelsinger’s knowledge in particular covers the x86 architecture and ecosystem which underpins much of the virtual environments seen today.

Gelsinger said he will continue to focus on software-defined data centers and VMware’s partner ecosystem.

“The next generation of software-defined data centers will be built by combining software with standardized hardware building blocks,” Gelsinger said.

“VMware is uniquely positioned to be the leader in this endeavour and deliver a whole new level of value to customers and its existing important ecosystem partners.”