Executive Exodus Continues at VMware with Hollis Departure

An exodus of executives and talks of reverse mergers over the past couple of days have put a cloud over VMware and its majority stakeholder, EMC, just ahead of next week’s VMworld in San Francisco.

The revolving executive door continued to turn on Tuesday at Palo Alto-based VMware with the departure of Chuck Hollis, the company’s chief strategist and fourth C-level departure in a month, reported our sister site, The VAR Guy.

It’ll be a bit of a reunion for Hollis, who after working 21 years for the EMC Federation, will join Oracle and report to his former boss from the early EMC days, Dave Donatelli.

Also on the personnel front, VMware just appointed insider Ray O’Farrell as chief technology officer where he will oversee the company’s R&D business as well, according to The VAR Guy. He replaces the company’s third-ranking executive Ben Fathi, who has not yet announced where he’ll land next.

If all the exits weren’t enough to make investors nervous, Fortune recently reported that EMC’s board may be looking at a proposal that would allow VMware to buy back its 80 percent holding, separating the two companies.

When news of a possible merger hit the streets, shares of EMC stock rose nearly 4 percent, while VMware dropped by 5 percent.

Read the complete post at: http://thevarguy.com/information-technology-channel-leadership-news/082515/chuck-hollis-leaves-vmware-oracle-prompts-leadership.