Channel Daily News

VMware drops Canadian country manager role

Former Microsoft and VMware chief executive Eric Gales to lead AWS in Canada

CDN has learned VMware has embarked on a North American regional structure, which will leave the Canadian subsidiary without a country manager.

The current VMware Canada country manager Eric Gales plans to leave the company shortly. He is currently working on the transition before he departs. The highly popular Gales has been in charge of VMware Canada for close to three years. He took the role late in 2012 replacing Grant Aitken.

All this action got started with the announcement of Maurizio Carli as the VMware corporate senior vice president and general manager for the Americas region.

According to a source, Carli is putting his stamp on the organization and has created two sales motions; one for high end enterprises and the other commercial. In that area, Brandon Sweeney has been tasked to run commercial, the partner organization and inside sales. The partner organization and inside sales will be a shared service.

Another source close to the situation told CDN that while North American strategy is coming the business in Canada has not grown in the last two years. This source said the VMware business in Canada was approximately $120 million in 2012, but that it dropped down to under $100 today.

With Gales leaving the Canadian subsidiary, Donna Wittmann, the Canadian channel chief, is now the most senior leader at VMware Canada. Wittmann will now report into Sweeney.

By going to a North American model, VMware Canada will have more people resources and channel investment.

Before joining VMware, Gales was the President of Microsoft Canada.

These two moves comes as VMware began delivering the first Identity-as-a-Service offering integrated with mobility management and security. The company also made a strategic commitment to Apple devices and iOS platform.