With shares of virtualization software maker VMware in free-fall, it’s worth noting that for all the comparisons that have been made between the EMC-controlled company and Google , VMware’s stock has now done something Google’s never did: It trades well below it’s opening price in 2007. As I noted when VMware went public not quite a year ago, the shares were offered at $29 but opened at $52. At one point VMware’s shares soared above $125.
Thursday they were down about 5% at $35 shortly before the close.
VMware and Google are in completely different businesses, but the comparisons were and are still relevant. When I spoke to executives there for the feature I wrote about ex-CEO Diane Greene last fall, more than one noted to me that VMware was competing – and winning – against Google in the battle for engineering talent. Both companies have beaten Microsoft , by the way, in their respective markets. Wall Street currently seems to think Google will continue to do a better job fending off Mr. Softee than a Greene-less VMware will.
On the subject of Greene’s departure, I blogged the news on July 8. But frankly it wasn’t until I read this post that I remembered that I’d noted last year that Greene only had a one-year contract that ended in July.