New VMware CTO Ben Fathi’s Top Priorities
VMware (VMW) has named Ben Fathi to the chief technology officer (CTO) post, filling an executive slot at the virtualization and hybrid cloud company that had been vacant for more than a year. Fathi reports to CEO Pat Gelsinger. What are the CTO’s top priorities? You can bet they include the software defined data center (SDDC), vCloud Hybrid Services and End-user Computing. Here’s why, according to The VAR Guy.
In VMware’s official announcement, the company mentioned terms that included:
- product quality.
- simplify IT complexity — particularly in the data center.
- collaboration with the academic community.
- scale, performance and reliability.
Fathi has previously led Cisco’s operating systems and network protocol teams. And he also was a corporate VP at Microsoft, leading the Windows core operating system division.
Fathi shifts into the CTO role as VMware tries to capitalize on a market inflection point. As the server virtualization market begins to mature, VMware has been pushing hard toward the software defined data center — which also includes network and storage virtualization capabilities.
Fathi must ensure that VMware can both compete and cooperate with virtualization, storage and networking companies — most notably Cisco Systems, where the VCE relationship remains critical. He must also help VMware to march from the server toward the desktop — where VMware’s End User Computing strategy is beginning to accelerate as well.