An interesting look at VMware, where the firing of CEO Diane Greene remains a big story more than a year after it happened.

CIOs may focus on this aspect: "Competitors like Microsoft, Citrix Systems and Oracle are readying fresh assaults on VMware's dominant position in the market for virtualization software." After all, your job is to buy the best products you can find in a changing market, not to keep up with the latest C-suite soap opera.

But the VMware saga is an important reminder that people count -- even at firms that don't have rock star CEOs. Three key executives followed Greene out the door. The departure of that kind of talent in a short period seems like something that should be on any customer's radar.

Software is still a young industry, with many companies run and largely defined by their larger-than-life founders. That's changing as the business matures -- so long, and good luck saving the world, Bill Gates -- but the transition raises questions of its own for CIOs who need to really understand the vendors with whom they do business.