[German]At the end of April 2024, all customer accounts with licenses were due to be migrated from VMware to Broadcom. Since mid-May 2024, all VMware customers should have been able to find their data in the new Broadcom portal. But I have received reports that the portal migration is running very smoothly and customers are missing their licenses. I would therefore like to ask those readers who are affected by the migration whether it went smoothly for a VMware customer and what experiences you have had with the move to the new portal?
Portal migration from VMware to Broadcom
After the purchase of VMware, Broadcom has made some changes. Among other things, a portal migration was carried out from VMware to Broadcom. I had already pointed out this move at the beginning of April 2024 in the blog post VMware users: Attention, portal migration to Broadcom on April 30, 2024 and recommended as a precaution to back up everything from the old portal that seems important. VMware published the support article VMware Support Transition to Broadcom (97304) on April 9, 2024. There, customers learned that the process of switching to Broadcom systems and the necessary migration of VMware systems will begin on Tuesday, April 30, 2024, and should be completed by Monday, May 6, 2024.
Numerous customer complaints about problems
According to my observations, there seem to have been numerous problems in connection with this portal migration. The transfer of licenses to the new portal does not always seem to have worked.
A first reader report
I had already written in the German blog post VMware Workstation/Fusion Personal Use-Mode bestätigt, Schwachstellen vorhanden, fehlende Lizenzen im Broadcom-Portal that customers are complaining about missing licenses in the Broadcom portal. A blog reader wrote to me by email on May 15, 2024 that he was experiencing massive problems in the Broadcom portal.
The users' licenses should have been moved to the Broadcom Support Portal a few days ago. Unfortunately, this is not working for some of them and we can no longer see our licenses and can therefore no longer carry out downloads!
The reader had sent me the following screenshot, which probably shows forum posts complaining about the same error. Without a license, it is no longer possible to download products.
Another reader message
On June 3, 2024, reader Toni A. contacted me by e-mail because he is very frustrated about the switch of the VMware portal to Broadcom. Under the title "Sell-out of VMware to Broadcom / expropriation of previous VMware customers", he wrote that he has been trying for days to get back the lost VMware licenses of one of his customers. He complains that he has to jump from one website to the next in the hope that he can finally download a current ISO including the valid licenses of his customer.
He had even created a ticket at the end of the email – only he can't even check the current status as of June 3, 2024 because he is redirected to another website that has a programming error. It's probably pure chaos.
Report from The Register
I also came across an article from The Register from early June 2023 stating that VMware customers are complaining that their licenses and other entitlements are not showing up on the Broadcom website. The Register refers to the reddit.com post Where are all my licenses from the end of May 2024, which addresses the issue of missing licenses after the portal move. The Register notes that a VMware employee on social media asked customers if their migrated accounts were approved – if not, action would be taken to resolve the issue.
Other customers are complaining that their new Broadcom account has not yet been activated, even though they followed Broadcom's support account migration process. In all cases, this means that access to licenses is not possible. This makes activation impossible when reinstalling VMware products and Broadcom may have problems recognizing current licenses.
Quote from a VMware partner
Someone responded to this article on Facebook with very insightful information.
It's still the same for us. Not a single one of our accounts has been migrated. And the icing on the cake is that even as a (still) partner you are not allowed/able to download the latest patches.
That's very bad, because the customers are standing on your feet and nothing works anymore.
Did the migration work for anyone?
My impression is that there were or are massive problems with the migration of the user portal from VMware to Broadcom and that many customers simply can no longer access their VMware licenses and can no longer make downloads. Reader Toni A. asked in his above-mentioned e-mail: "Do you know anyone who has already been through this theater and can give a tip on how to deal with these cretins?"
His hope was that I might have some new information, which I have to deny. My picture is that there is a lot wrong with the Broadcom migration and the process of fixing the problem is simply non-existent. But I'll put it this way: If Broadcom receives 10,000 customers with complaints about the migration, the support staff are simply "grounded" – they would then have to view the old VMware portal data and, if necessary, manually enter it into the new portal.
Hence the final question: Can anyone from the blog readership confirm a complete portal migration in which all data and licenses were retained? And for the VMware customers among the readership, where there were problems with the migration, the follow-up question as to whether this has since been resolved and what was necessary for this?
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Our VMware licence is up for renewal in three weeks, and our reseller (who is an approved reseller under the new model) has still not been able to get us a quote as the system is still locked. Unofficial word from them is that Broadcom still doesn't have an exact date for fixing this, but it was still expected to be another two weeks (as of last week). Right now, I am not holding out much hope for getting this solved by the renewal date, which coincides with the end of the financial year in Australia, and if we do not have it locked in by then, we will not have budget approval to spend the money in next year's budget. Broadcom really REALLY screwed this up.