Pros

Amazing products. Sharp engineers. Some sharp business folk, product marketing, product management, etc. Great location. Chance to really, really impact how computing is done in the future. VMware is the most important company you've never heard of, on its way to sitting at the table with Intel, Google, and Microsoft.

Cons

There's a lot of leftover dead wood from when the company was an acquired backwater. Diane Green kept around a lot of people who were in over their heads (in PR, in field marketing, etc.) and unfortunately, those folks ended up hiring a lot of other folks like them. They are still around. This is changing, slowly, with incompetents being tossed out under the new Maritz regime. However, it's the poor hires that impact company performance at this point, and who frustrate, and block stars from actually getting things done.

Advice to Senior Management

Devolve power. Get out of the way. Focus on unwinding the mistakes that were made on the go-to-market org under Diane Greene. Make the marketing / business side of the house as strong as engineering talent, and this company will be unstoppable.