EMC should set VMware free

Quoting from The Register:

Analysis EMC shareholders concerned about the stagnant nature of the company’s shares should open up a new document file right now. They should address it to CEO Joe Tucci, and they should title it “Spinoff VMware and unlock precious shareholder value.”

Reasons to stay at home
Without question, VMware has benefitted by becoming part of EMC.

VMware’s management has always been engineer rich. CEO Diane Greene is an incredibly successful businesswoman holding, with her husband, more than a 50 per cent stake in VMware, but she’s a geek at heart. Before the EMC buy, VMware spent little on marketing and depended on word of mouth.

In addition, the nature of the server partitioning market demands that customers trust that their software supplier will be around for a long time. You’re not going to slice up hundreds of systems and pray that VMware stays in business or has the support you need when something goes wrong. You have to know that for certain.

EMC helps on both fronts by putting its full marketing weight behind VMware, adding muscle to its support staff and slapping a big, trusted name on the VMware products. EMC gives VMware a more mature, solid presence.

Reasons to fly
There’s, however, little reason to believe that VMware can’t instill the same level of trust in customers and apply the same marketing savvy given its current size and the state of the partitioning market.

The whole article at source.