Interview: VMware takeover by Broadcom, what are the consequences?

[German]Since the acquisition of VMware by Broadcom, the hyperconverged infrastructure market has seen some movement. After the takeover, partners were terminated and the license conditions for VMware products were changed, which effectively increased prices. Since then, customers have been looking for alternatives. I was able to conduct an interview with Tobias Pföhler from StorMagic about the effects of this.

VMware takeover a worst case for customers

I have already written a lot here in the blog about the upheavals that were observed on the market following the takeover of VMware by Broadcom (see links at the end of the article). Following the takeover, the licensing conditions for VMware products were changed and only cloud subscriptions are now possible (see Broadcom ends perpetual licenses for VMware products – End of the free ESXi server?).

Since early 2024, massive price increases for virtualization customers were on the table. Observers have been rubbing their eyes in amazement since the end of 2023 and watching Broadcom squeeze customers like a lemon from one day to the next and firing long-standing partners (see Contracts for all VMware partners terminated by Broadcom for 2024) and driving toward a crash course.

According to my observations, many customers have since been actively looking for alternatives for their virtualization infrastructure before the VMware licenses expire. The competition is positioning itself. I had already written something on the subject of migration in the blog post Analyses: VMware acts as planned with licenses; switching to alternatives a problem.

Background interview on the implications of the takeover

The acquisition of VMware by Broadcom has brought movement to the hyperconverged infrastructure market. Many questions arise, such as: Which use cases and industries are affected? What are the consequences of the acquisition of VMware by Broadcom for customers? What alternatives do VMware customers now have? Are there new technologies available?

And there are still OEMs such as Dell, Lenovo and HPE that continue to sell hyperconverged systems with the VMware stack pre-installed. Broadcom has just signed a new deal with the OEMs mentioned (see VMware by Broadcom signs agreement with Dell, Microsoft, Lenovo and HPE). What role do OEMs such as Dell, Lenovo or HPE play?

I had the opportunity to have a background intverview on this topic with Tobias Pföhler from StorMagic, a provider of hyperconverged storage.

OEMs re-signing VMware-deals amongst customer-doubt

"Just recently, the top three server OEMs, Dell, Lenovo, and HPE extended their previously expired contracts with VMware to continue selling Hyperconverged systems and servers with the VMware stack pre-installed. This seems like a necessary move for the OEMs, as they do not have their own hypervisors and rely on VMware to bundle their HCI solutions with. However, the move is bad news for customers, who had been looking for alternatives for their edge data and SMB use cases ever since Broadcom changed its licenses for VMware products after the acquisition. Which effectively increased prices and created doubt amongst their customer base about future support and product investment.

HCI in high demand

The new agreement is another data point, proving that HCI is a highly desired way for end users to deploy IT solutions. The market addressing use cases like edge and SMB has continued to grow consistently and has been on the move ever since Broadcom's VMware acquisition and the following price increase. As a result, VMware's competitors are lining up to seize the opportunity as buyers consider new alternative choices to replace near-end-of-life servers that used to run VMware.

New solutions offer alternatives.

Analysts are already seeing a significant increase in demand for such storage- and compute architectures as many end-users are looking for alternative solutions. Vendors in the market are responding to the rising demand for HCI and the chance of many VMware end-of-life installations in different ways. A promising one is to build a software-defined product with a purpose-built and cost-effective solution that install directly on new or existing servers and includes a KVM-based hypervisor, advanced virtual networking, and a storage software layer. Such a software-defined HCI solution can simplify operations and deliver high availability for edge and SMB environments with only two servers. It can help users transition from costly, overengineered, overprovisioned software running on VMware to purpose-built and dependable solutions—saving customers up to 62% on software costs alone."

What's your migration status?

Currently there is a lot of trouble about lost VMware licenses after the move of the VMware customer portal to Broadcom (see Did the User Portal migration from VMware to Broadcom work for you?). This should encourage the urge to "just get away from VMware by Broadcom". Various blog posts and the interview above indicate that VMware by Broadcom is not "without alternative", but that some competitors or alternative solutions are establishing themselves on the market

I would like to conclude this topic with the question of what the status of the readership is? Are you planning to switch to an alternative, and if so, to which products? Are there already migration projects or has the switch already been completed?

Interview: VMware takeover by Broadcom, what are the consequences?

VMware takeover a worst case for customers

Background interview on the implications of the takeover

OEMs re-signing VMware-deals amongst customer-doubt

HCI in high demand

New solutions offer alternatives.

What's your migration status?

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