Everyone who is in the know knows that VMware former CEO Diane Greene is working on something. Now we know its name: Datrium Storage. Oh, and it's attacking virtualized storage — an interesting choice for someone deposed from the company she co-founded by Joe Tucci, the chief exeuctive of EMC and the undisputed king of storage.
VMware campus, Palo Alto, Calif.
Other than a passing comment in a recent Wall Street Journal story about her investment in Cumulus Networks, Greene and everyone else has been tight-lipped about Datrium.
The 56-year old Greene is part of the Silicon Valley elite and is close to investors such as A16z, the venture firm co-founded by Ben Horowitz and Marc Andreessen. She has been an active angel investor. Before starting VMware in 1998, Greene held technical leadership positions at Silicon Graphics, Tandem Computers, and Sybase, and was Chief Executive Officer of VXtreme. She sits on the board of Intuit. In January 2012 joined Google's board of directors, a perch that gives her good view into the technology and infrastructure trends.
What we know is that the company is quietly pilfering VMware and is picking off key talent. Talent like former VMware SVP of cloud infrastructure Bogomil Balkansky, who recently left the mothership to join Datrium. Other high-profile defectors include Mike Nelson, one of the key technologists behind VMware's VMotion and who was named one of two inaugural VMware Fellows last year.
Other former VMware hands — including Matt Ginzton, a former senior staff engineer, and Patrick Lin, a senior product manager who left VMware a few years ago for Jive Software — are also headed to Datrium. And, a quick check of LinkedIn also shows that Brian Biles, VP and co-founder of Data Domain and once the VP of product management at EMC, is also a co-founder of Datrium Inc., which we're betting is one and the same as Datrium Storage.
If Datrium Storage is indeed what it seems — a startup dedicated to virtualized storage — it could be seen as big-time payback by Greene, who in a stunning move was ousted from the company she co-founded and replaced by Paul Maritz. Word is that Greene is funding Datrium.
We're still looking to find someone — anyone — to comment on this story. When we do we will update accordingly.
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