VMWare chief executive Paul Maritz has vacated his role as president of the EMC-owned company and will now operate solely as its chief executive officer.
The company replaced Maritz with four co-presidents plucked from VMware's senior ranks, including two former senior Microsoft executives as the company stepped up its war against the Redmond giant.
Incoming co-president of products will be VMware's chief development officer, Richard McAniff, formerly corporate vice president of Microsoft Office and general manager of its Visual Basic development system.
VMware's chief operating officer T. Tod Nielson, a one-time CEO of Borland Software, was appointed co-president of VMware applications platforms.
Nielson was also formerly Microsoft's general manager of Database and Developer tools and vice president of Microsoft's platform group.
VMware's chief financial officer (CFO) Mark Peek has added co-president of business operations to his title.
And VMWare's executive vice president of worldwide field operations, Carl Eschenbach, was also appointed co-president of customer operations.
The new co-president lineup followed investor disappointment over Peek's comments at VMWare's January earnings update that operating margins would remain static at 28 to 29 percent in 2011.
Maritz had joined EMC in 2008 after it acquired his cloud company Pi.
VMware continues to lock horns with Microsoft over customers, with the latter pulling a recent open-letter stunt which warned customers against the risks of VMware lock-in.
Maritz had brushed aside the letter as a "sincere form of flattery".
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