Where is VMware going with its security initiative? Not sure. But it will be without its security head, Nand Mulchandani, the latest executive to leave the company. Security was a pretty big song and dance for VMware during VMworld 2007. But the music seemed silenced at the 2008 event, or at the very least, the volume knob was turned down a few notches. Over the last two years, the company did make progress toward answering security critics. They purchased Determina back in August of 2007, formed a partnership agreement with Shavlik that same month, and then earlier this year created the VMsafe program. Last month, the company quietly acquired another security vendor, Blue Lane Technologies. But the virtualization giant doesn’t appear to be blowing the security horns very loud these days.[ Visit the InfoWorld Virtualization Topic Center for virtualization news, reviews, and events ] It’s been over a year now since VMware made its move into the security space with its acquisition of Determina. And with that acquisition, the company gained its security head, Nand Mulchandani. Now, Mulchandani has become the latest VMware executive to leave the company, following co-founders Mendel Rosenblum and Diane Greene, R&D’s Richard Sarwal, and product development’s Paul Chan.Mulchandani has left to become the CEO of San Francisco-based OpenDNS, a fast-growing firm that provides Internet infrastructure and DNS services. As the new CEO of OpenDNS, he plans to expand the company’s consumer business while also taking on the enterprise and quite possibly the cloud. What does this mean for VMware’s road map on the security front? And where will the Blue Lane acquisition take them that the Determina acquisition never seemed to be able to? One thing is for sure: Security critics are still poking and prodding away at the hypervisor and at virtualization. Software Development