when the innovation is done through accounting practices and offshoring, the bright minds will find better places. the drain has been happening for a while, out with the high salaries/tenure and with the the #H1B and college grads.
many reasons, especially bring in new management who wants to consolidate power by bringing their friends or hiring new and make room by getting rid of whoever they need to
VMWare will be split up and sold in pieces, that's what private equity do to maximize their return/unlock the value within. The employees are always the one that gets the short end of the stick.
Its a right move to move old folks out. I know people who simply create work. Stuff which will take couple of months, folks drag for a year. When asked they just argue. Vmware fell behind in cloud offering because of such people.
There is still a lot of innovation done at VMware and EMC, in "financial engineering", not in software engineering!
We haven't Innovation since the Steve Herrod days !!! That was a long time ago .
This is healthy overall. These experienced and talented folks starting to venture out to competitors to create new products or starting up new companies. Mundane works will get outsourced and new innovation will begin somewhere in the US again by these experienced folks.