Kudos Diane Greene

Diane Greene is gone from VMware. It had been rumored to be coming for many months and semi-not so great numbers being reported seemed like a good time to end the show. The woman took a lot of rumor mill shots for a long time, but in the end, she went out a champ.

First of all she has to be given credit for her accomplishments. She made a lot of people rich, made "virtualization" acceptable (after many years of storage virtualization failing to find its "need to have" raison d'être), and has been at the helm of one of the great success stories of the modern era.

Perhaps her greatest accomplishment has been to not only survive, but thrive, in the macho male world of EMC. Joe Tucci is an intelligent, honorable human being – I know firsthand – but it will take a long time before sexism no longer exists in this industry. Diane Greene beat the odds and thrived in an industry stacked against her, in one of the more good ole boy male dominated companies in a male dominated business world.

She leaves owing no one anything, and quite the contrary, is an exemplary role model for the next generation of female mucky mucks. She didn't inherit her title, she earned it. Sure she had a little help with EMC and all, but anyone who thinks that made her role easier is nuts.

I wish you well Mrs. Greene. You done good.

So I spent the 4^th of July celebrating as any good American should – in a British colony (Bermuda). A fabulous place, Bermuda. The whole silly long knee socks could go, but those Brits are one to cling to tradition. I'm a big fan of Dark and Stormy's (Ginger Beer and Black Rum). The highlight of my young son Michael's life, at the ripe old age of six, is now the memory he holds of us sitting in a salt water pool with Bailey the Dolphin. Bailey provided the perfect possible set of six year old boy thrills – first she let him feed her a fish, then she made fart sounds out her blow hole one foot from our faces, and then as if via divine intervention, she pooped. There is nothing in life as fantastic to a young boy as natural gas. I'm fairly sure he will now dedicate his life to teaching animals to pull his finger.

Comments

[Chuck Hollis]

Agreed -- Diane is a champ, and accomplished amazing things.

Good post -- thanks!

[Steve O'Donnell]

Under her stewardship server virtualization got respectable to talk about in polite company. Who can do that for storage virtualization? The only credible player, IBM, seems to want to hide what they have like a lamp under a bushel. I keep talking to Monshaw about spinning SVC off but that seems to be too hard for IBM to do.

After server and network virtualization, storage virtualization is that key that takes all of the heat out of what frame to use and vendor lock-in. Maybe thats the reason that it hasn't flown. Too many interest groups wanting to maintain the status quo?

And yes I am the big articulate Scotsman.

Steve

---------Who said articlulate? I can't understand a thing you are saying........Cheers

[Big D]

I could not agree more. I met miss Greene, although she probably won't remember, but she never sold out and held true to her ideals. Not many do

[vm2]

OK!
Diane is the un-disputed heavy weight champ she equalled (some argue beat at 40-0) Rocky Marciano's 39-0 perfect record. Yes indeed, in her world of 39 perfectly sucessful quarters. And when you clean house in your weigth division, the guys at your level just dont like you, it is as simple as that. She will go on to bigger and better role, and Joe will be back again trying to buy something from her, I just wish she had never sold it to emc

----Why?? It's not reasonable to believe the outrageous success would have happened organically - so why piss on EMC? In this case the bitter end may not have been storybook, but it sure was a financial fantasy come true for all concerned.----Steve

[Tom]

You left out an important fact. You have to use Barrett's Ginger Beer (along with Goslings Dark Rum of course) for that perfect Dark 'N Stormy. All other types of Ginger Beer (Reeds, etc.) won't give you that authentic Bermudian ocean breeze taste.