Mozy and VMware are a better product-making match for each other on a daily basis than Mozy and business owner EMC.
SANTA CLARA, Calif. - Mozy, which has served as the cloud-storage
division of EMC for the last four years, revealed to eWEEK on April 4 that its
business relationship has changed with the parent company.
Starting immediately, employees at the Utah-based Mozy will
be seeing a new employer name on their paychecks: that of its cousin, VMware,
also owned by EMC.
The main reason for this business-side change is that Mozy,
with its cloud-based services, and Palo Alto, Calif.-based VMware, which is
moving more of its own emphasis into cloud-building software, are a better
product-making match for each other on a daily basis than Mozy and business
owner EMC, spokesmen for both companies told eWEEK.
EMC, based in Hopkinton, Mass., is the world's largest
independent storage hardware and software maker. The company is run as a very
tight ship by CEO Joe Tucci and his lieutenants.
Mozy and VMware, more laid-back West Coast-oriented
companies, are much closer in corporate culture than with EMC, an established
East Coast corporation that is rapidly becoming a full-service data center
systems provider.
Backstory of VMware
and EMC Relationship
VMware and EMC have had a difficult relationship since the
Palo Alto, Calif., company was acquired in January 2004 for $625 million. The
business-approach problems came to a head in July 2008, when EMC relieved CEO
Diane Greene of her duties and replaced her with current CEO Paul Maritz.
Shortly thereafter, Greene's husband, VMware's chief
scientist, Mendel Rosenblum, left the company. Both Greene and Rosenblum had
been among the founders of the company, which is now by far the world's largest
virtualization software maker-and a reliable cash cow for EMC.
Mozy Chief Marketing Officer and Vice President of Product
Management Russ Stockdale noted that this behind-the-scenes change would not
affect Mozy customers in any way. All service-level agreements remain the same,
he said.
EMC still owns both companies, so that has not changed.
Stockdale said that more and more Mozy and VMware employees have been working
together in project groups and that it made more sense for the two companies to
create a closer relationship going forward.
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Chris Preimesberger was named Editor-in-Chief of Features & Analysis at eWEEK in November 2011. Previously he served eWEEK as Senior Writer, covering a range of IT sectors that include data center systems, cloud computing, storage, virtualization, green IT, e-discovery and IT governance. His blog, Storage Station, is considered a go-to information source. Chris won a national Folio Award for magazine writing in November 2011 for a cover story on Salesforce.com and CEO-founder Marc Benioff, and he has served as a judge for the SIIA Codie Awards since 2005. In previous IT journalism, Chris was a founding editor of both IT Manager's Journal and DevX.com and was managing editor of Software Development magazine. His diverse resume also includes: sportswriter for the Los Angeles Daily News, covering NCAA and NBA basketball, television critic for the Palo Alto Times Tribune, and Sports Information Director at Stanford University. He has served as a correspondent for The Associated Press, covering Stanford and NCAA tournament basketball, since 1983. He has covered a number of major events, including the 1984 Democratic National Convention, a Presidential press conference at the White House in 1993, the Emmy Awards (three times), two Rose Bowls, the Fiesta Bowl, several NCAA men's and women's basketball tournaments, a Formula One Grand Prix auto race, a heavyweight boxing championship bout (Ali vs. Spinks, 1978), and the 1985 Super Bowl. A 1975 graduate of Pepperdine University in Malibu, Calif., Chris has won more than a dozen regional and national awards for his work. He and his wife, Rebecca, have four children and reside in Redwood City, Calif.Follow on Twitter: editingwhiz
