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Ex-Microsoft Cloud Exec To Lead EMC's Storage Division
EMC Corp., the parent company of virtualization giant VMware, has chosen a new president for its Advanced Storage Division: the former head of Microsoft's Server and Cloud Division (SCD), Amitabh Srivastava.
Longtime Microsoft watcher Mary-Jo Foley reported on Srivastava's new position on Saturday after noticing the updated title on his LinkedIn profile. Prior to his move to EMC, Srivastava held a number of positions in Microsoft that were instrumental to the company's cloud strategy.
According to his Microsoft bio, Srivastava began his 14-year career at Redmond as the head of Microsoft Research's Advanced Development Tools group, the main goal of which was to develop "new techniques to improve the performance and quality of Microsoft software." In 2003, Srivastava became the corporate vice president of the Windows group and was charged with the development of the Windows Vista operating system.
In 2006, Srivastava became a co-leader on "Project Red Dog," which Microsoft later announced at the 2008 Professional Developers Conference as Windows Azure, its cloud computing platform.
Three years later, Srivastava was appointed to lead the SCD, formed under the Server & Tools Business umbrella. His appointment and the reorganization appeared to indicate that Microsoft was moving its server and cloud operations more closely together. Srivastava at the time reported to Bob Muglia, who was president of the Server & Tools Business. Muglia subsequently left Microsoft in January of this year, which roughly coincided with a string of high-profile executive exits at the company.
After Muglia's departure, Srivastava became the presumptive choice for the new Server & Tools president. However, Microsoft appointed Satya Nadella, previously the senior vice president of R&D at Microsoft's Online Services Division, to that role. Srivastava's plan to resign from Microsoft was announced on the same day as Nadella's promotion.
Incidentally, VMware, which is owned by EMC, is headed by another former Microsoft executive, Paul Maritz. While EMC and Microsoft each have competing products in the virtualization space, the two companies also have a partnership to ensure interoperability among their products.