'In a cloud you need to re-structure your IT organization'

Patrick P Gelsinger, the new CEO of VMware, the company that grew from zero to $3.8 bn in 14 years (he was heading EMC earlier, and was Intel's first CTO before that) talks about his priorities, how he will build up the cloud momentum, and what he wants to do with India. Excerpts

- IBRAHIM AHMAD

After Paul Maritz, as the new CEO what new will you bring to the table at VMware? Or will you just be pushing your predecessors plans?

It is not that VMware has a problem. Paul has given VMware a solid strategy and the company is in a very good state. So job one for me—smooth transition. Actually Paul has spoken to employees, customers, and partners, and so have I. And everybody is saying, “Very good, let’s get back to work”. Also since the company is performing well, so far everything including the transition has been pretty good. It’s not like the Marissa Mayer of Yahoo! who has to transform the company. Those are hard situations and they have to take some bold actions. In our case, there are aspects that will require strong focus. We have laid out a very bold vision like the software-defined data center, the new company that we have acquired which needs to be operationalized, the 3-layer transition (from PCs to user devices, from office applications to new apps and big data, and from servers to cloud) that needs more refinement. Paul in many respects was a reluctant CEO. He loved strategies, he loved technology, and directions, but he was not an operations guy. VMware is a company of 13,000 people, an operations pervade everything we do. VMware is like a clumsy adolescent that has grown up too fast. As a company it had extraordinary growth but some of the operation disciplines and maturity need more work. That has to be refined, accelerated, and made more mature.

Since you are talking so much about the need, as the new CEO, to focus on ops, what are those specific areas that need special attention?