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Last summer, Paul Maritz was only hours into his new job as chief executive of VMware when he called Tod Nielsen, his former Microsoft colleague.

Nielsen, formally Maritz's right-hand man at Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people ) and chief executive of Borland Software (nasdaq: BORL - news - people ), talked with Maritz about Sarbanes-Oxley and other regulatory rules.

"Paul was essentially the No. 3 person at Microsoft, in charge of all system software," Nielsen says. "I was responsible for all the interactions with the developer community, for marketing and launching and evangelizing."

For the next three to four months, the two would get together regularly and talk about the challenges and opportunities Maritz faced as CEO of VMware (nyse: VMW - news - people ).

Around November, the duo decided to make it a permanent arrangement; in January, Nielsen joined Palo Alto, Calif.-based VMware as its first-ever chief operating officer. "It became clear that this was a great chance for us to work together and for me to join the company and help take things to the next level," Nielsen says.

For Maritz, who replaced co-founder Diane Greene last July, taking the company to the next level meant bringing a new organizational model to the maturing VMware.

For Nielsen, it meant getting the company in shape: streamlining work flow while keeping accountability and responsibility in place. "Paul and I cannot make every decision," Nielsen says. "We've got to make sure we've got empowered organizations that can drive and be focused on delivering their solutions."