Of course, as Maritz moves on to his new position as chief strategist at EMC (which owns a 79 percent stake in VMware), the question is how much incoming VMware CEO Gelsinger will alter the vision laid out by Maritz. For his part, Gelsinger has given every indication that he intends to stay the course.

"I've known VMware for many years," Gelsinger said. "This is a period of great disruption in the industry. The infrastructure, applications and access layer are all being changed simultaneously. Personally, I'm committed to the strategy that Paul has laid out. I want to accelerate, define and deliver on this powerful vision that has been described."

During the four years of Maritz's watch, the percentage of Intel-based applications running on a virtualized base increased from 25 percent to 60 percent. Gelsinger says his goal is to push that number to 90+ percent in the next three to four years. He also says that he intends to push further dramatic improvements in provisioning, giving organizations the ability to deliver in minutes or seconds what today takes hours or days.

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