"My first order of business was to make sure the transition from Diane to myself went as smoothly as possible," he said. "As with any transition, we've had our challenges there, but I can report that we are making our way through them and moving ahead."

VMware will also divide its sales division into geographic regions, each with its own profit-and-loss responsibility its own senior manager, Maritz said. The company thinks it can expand significantly in Japan, Korea, Brazil, Russia, India and China, among others, he said.

Maritz also discussed competition from Microsoft. Some customers delayed purchases in the quarter to do side-by-side comparisons of the companies' products, he said. "By and large those worked in our favor," according to Maritz. "We did not see any major losses to Microsoft."

He argued that Microsoft is still behind VMware with its virtualization technology. "We don't see them catching up to us until the next 12 to 24 months, by which time we will have moved on," he said.

Executives were cautiously optimistic on the call but acknowledged that VMware's growth will continue to slow as it becomes bigger and the virtualization market matures. The company will start to follow the seasonal trends typical of the industry, which means its first-quarter revenue will likely decline compared to the fourth, said CFO Mark Peek.