A mere month ago, VMware had ousted their CEO and one of the founders -- Dianne Green -- for former Microsoft director Paul Maritz. And thus the stage had been set for the new leader to take VMware into battle against its biggest threat to date -- the looming software juggernaut that is Microsoft.
Maritz was still firmly in the honeymoon phase of the new job when on the morning of August 12th, he learned that his company had a serious problem on their hands. Customers were reporting a flaw with the latest software code of VMware’s flagship product. And this bug was a nasty one. The problematic code ticked quietly undetected until it exploded at 2008-08-12:12:01 AM, stripping away a staggering amount of functionality. Panic spread; the support web site folded from the traffic from frantic users searching for answers; support phone lines were assaulted by a massive amount of customer calls; rumours of an unpalatable workaround floated throughout the blogs. Massive chaos ensued. If you paused for a moment and listened closely, you would have swore you heard the hoof beats of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse riding through the office cubicles.
Or rather, that was some of the doom and gloom that some people were spreading.
Yes, the bug was bad -- the licensing component of the software was configured in such a way that on August 12, all the licenses expired. Yes it was embarrassing. And yes it affected a number of customers that were using it on production systems. VMware, however, responded quickly, efficiently, professionally, and (outwardly) calmly to correct its very embarrassing mistake.
By the time I awoke that August 12th Tuesday morning, my SE warned me via email about the buggy update. Later that afternoon, another rep from VMware contacted me to see if I had the bad patch (I didn’t). VMware kept its customers constantly up to date on the progress with regular email blasts throughout the day, and had posted a fix by 1 AM -- or a little after 10 PM at the company's headquarters in Paulo Alto California. The new CEO Maritz also posted a public apology for the grave mistake (a copy of which can be seen here: http://blogs.vmware.com/console/2008/08/letter-from-vmw.html).
I think the company's response -- and thus Maritz's response -– to this major issue couldn’t have been handled in any other way (well, I guess they could have caught the mistake before it was released). What will be interesting to watch is to see how the competition reacts. And by competition, I mean Microsoft since they are the only legitimate competition right now. Will they sympathetically keep quiet, or will they use this as further ammunition in the ever escalating mud-flinging war?
My money is on Mr. Ballmer's team to scoop up a double handful and fling with all their might.