Will or better yet can VMware (VMW) recover?

VMware, Inc. (NYSE:VMW) Short Float is at 42.96%! it seems like just yesterday shares were over $120 and everyone wanted a piece of them.  Not so today, shares are right back down to the IPO price, that price that none of us could get in on, hello $38 a share.  What now?

The July Analyst Take got attention, shares are right in line with their pricing.  Sure revenue is growing, but earnings are lacking and the P/E of 66 is still high.

Wall Street is saying Where's the beef? to VMware and the company has much to prove.

Here are some of the recent analyst price targets, and for once, I agree with them:

Fellow Masters, it all comes down to the next earnings call.

VMware will announce second quarter financial results after market close on Tuesday, July 22, 2008. The company will host a conference call at 2:00 p.m. PT/ 5:00 p.m. ET that day to review quarterly results and business outlook. A live web broadcast of the event will be available on the VMware Investor Relations website at http://ir.vmware.com.

VMW shares have been under attack lately, after saying that full-year revenue will be "modestly below the previous guidance of 50 percent growth over 2007."

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Adding fuel to the fire was the departure of CEO Diane Greene, and replacing her with former Microsoft executive Paul Maritz.

However, getting Paul Martiz running the show isn't such a bad thing.  Maritz, who spent 14 years at Microsoft, had been at former VMware parent EMC since February, when the storage giant bought Maritz's start-up, Pi.

Its classic corporate America, take the candy away from the kid who brought it to you in the first place so you can brand and sell it to everyone until nobody wants it anymore.  Make tons of money, drive up the stock, insiders sellout, then they turn the company into a saturated lifeless Starbucks (SBUX).  But hey, VMware exec's get rich in the process.

Paul Maritz while at Microsoft was involved in key developments such as the launch of Windows 95, who retired from the company in 2000.  The guy has a great resume, but he's not Greene.

Should VMware fail in the eyes of Wall Street on next week's call, expect a new 52-week low for VMW shares.  But if a glimmer of hope is delivered, its off to the races.

VMware has so much potential for would-be investors, but should they disappoint the masses watch the Shorts run the stock into the ground.  I want to believe in Maritz and I want to profit from buying VMW shares, but at this point, its a throw of the dice.

Discliamer: No positions in VMW, MSFT, or SBUX.