“Prior to joining Google, I set up a meeting on or about November 11, 2004 with Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer to discuss my planned departure….At some point in the conversation Mr. Ballmer said: ‘Just tell me it’s not Google.’ I told him it was Google. At that point, Mr. Ballmer picked up a chair and threw it across the room hitting a table in his office.”

- Former Microsoft Distinguished Engineer Mark Lucovsky

“I’ve never thrown a chair in my life….By and large I made a commitment nine years ago that I was not going to curse. I know I’ve had one or two transgressions in nine years, but I made that commitment to myself. Is that one of them? I don’t recall.”
– Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer

The rumors are true. Mark Lucovsky, the engineer whose departure from Microsoft (MSFT) allegedly sent CEO Steve Ballmer into a paroxysm of profanity and chair-tossing, has left Google (GOOG) for a new position at VMware (VMW), the company has confirmed.

Lucovsky, once a Microsoft Distinguished Engineer and a key architect of Windows and the company’s ill-starred Dot-Net strategy, was hired away by Google in 2004. Now, five years later, he has unceremoniously left the search sovereign for a senior engineer position at VMware. There, he’ll be reunited with Paul Maritz, president and CEO of VMware, who once served as Vice President of the Platform Strategy and Developer Group at Microsoft.

“As one of the founders and the leader of VMware, Diane guided the creation and development of a company that is changing the way that people think about computing,” Joe Tucci, Chairman of VMware’s board, said in a statement. “The board thanks her for her considerable contributions to VMware and wishes her every success in the future.”

VMware offered no reason for Greene’s departure, though presumably it has something to do with the company’s lowered guidance. The company’s stock tanked on the news, falling more than 30 percent to $36.97, taking billions of dollars of shareholder wealth with it. Truly an ugly decline for a company that launched the biggest technology IPO since Google went public in 2004. Since hitting a 52-week high of $125.25 last October, shares VMware have shed nearly 70 percent of their value.