VMware has been doing layoffs by different names (a re-org, aggressive performance management, out-sourcing) for many months. For some reason they don't want to acknowledge this is happening (especially within the engineering group). So people just disappear..........

They are not giving lay-offs per-say.They are just eliminating
the jobs completely and calling it a reorganization (telling the
person their job has been "impacted"). I know of a few seasoned
employees that were given the boot just last week by Victoria Bastide-Vallstrom; the Director of Release Engineering group in Palo Alto. They were told they could transfer into different available positions within the company if they wanted to. Apparently not true because it was just discovered that since she completely eliminated them, their positions, and their projects that it is not possible to transfer but rather these employees that have all been there for years must go through the complete hiring process again. Also, Recently in Boston the Continuous Product Development (CPD) team was completely let go but this is not called a lay off? (Around 30 people). Could this be a trend at VMW to cover it all up with fancy terminology? When in the end it is just a good ol fashioned Layoff! = had job...now don't have job

Forget about getting promotions/working up a career path at VMware, they actually have absolutely no formal promotion policy. There is simply too much talk, and very little action. First, much of senior management have no vision. If they do have a vision, they have no idea how to execute. We have had the most number of layoffs and pay cuts throughout the industry. It may be time for new leadership to set the direction.