How VCE Created an Amazing Joint Tech Venture

There is an old joke and it goes like this "at the beginning of a partnership one partner has the money and the other has the experience, at the end of a partnership these two positions have swapped."   Having been through this personally I really don't find it funny.

Here is Silicon valley there are stories told about companies that have been historically horrid partners and how the relationships, when they came apart, were more like ugly public divorces than what you'd expect from public companies run by professionals. You get two or more entities run by very rich folks with surprisingly fragile egos and things can both go south and get expensive very quickly for the firms and their customers.  The Oracle/HP breakup was a vivid and very painful case in point.  

[Related: Cisco Said to Be Selling Most of VCE Stake to EMC ]

There was always a danger that even though VCE was very successful it would fall apart because of executive changes or changing competitive dynamics in the partner companies. I think all partnerships and joint ventures should have a "sell by date" that forces them to transition into something that has a better defined command and control structure.

VCE's Transition