The virtualization market is growing by leaps and bounds, but the market leader will be bounding forward with a new boss on board, as Diane Greene, co-founder and President/CEO of VMware was forcibly removed yesterday by majority-owner EMC.

The move, which has been sought by Wall Street investors for months, comes just as VMware was to announce lowered sales projections and a drop in estimated revenues. The company has seen it's stock drop more than 50% in the first half of 2008, down 67% from last October; Greene's removal caused a further 25% drop yesterday, while EMC suffered a drop of nearly 12%. Replacing Greene is Paul Maritz, formerly of Microsoft, who had been head of cloud computing for EMC. According to EMC, Greene was asked to stay on with VMware and offered the opportunity to create her own — subordinate — position, but she refused. With $635 million in the bank from the company's 2004 sale to EMC, we suspect that she won't be standing in line at the unemployment office anytime soon.