Watchdog: Broadcom buy of VMware may be bad for competition Britain’s competition watchdog fears Broadcom’s proposed $61 billion purchase of VMware may lead to higher prices for servers and damage potential innovation. The process began in November when the Competition and Markets Authority opened a preliminary inquiry into Broadcom’s purchase of the former Dell Technologies-owned …
Duh, but hardware as to why it would be bad? Seriously? Hardware is just going to keep on working with vmware, it's nearly impossible for it to not. You should be far, far more concerned about the _virtual hardware_ being inaccessible. The choice is VMW or "the cloud". AWS, Google and Azure look forward to this acquisition no doubt, THAT is the bad you should be worried about.
Broadcom doesn't, as far as I'm aware, currently sell any virtualisation software. So them buying VMWare won't reduce the number of options in the market, therefore from a competition perspective, it won't have any impact.
However, at the moment, VMWare customers can choose to run their software on a wide range of different hardware, including Broadcom's. There is a possibility that they could make VMWare run best on Broadcom hardware, and that is certainly a competition angle they can look it.
I think you are giving Broadcom far more credit than they deserve.
The knife cuts both ways. Is it technically possible for Broadcom to advantage their hardware on VMWare? Sure, that is technically possible. The corollary means users with non-Broadcom chips (ie: Intel) will dump VMWare for other hypervisors. That would negate any possible market upside of trying to lock their chips to software. Not to mention the chip industry is cut-throat, Broadcom won't risk any sort of customer lock-out to their chip business.
Frankly, I think this is looking for monsters where they don't exist. Did EMC advantage their their storage to VMWare when they bought the company? Did Dell advantage their servers to VMWare when they owned VMWare? Why would (yet another hardware company) do that behavior when they own VMWare??
Currently, hardware manufacturers share commercially sensitive information with VMware under embargo, so they can ensure their new products work reasonably well under VMware at launch.
Broadcom is a direct competitor to many of these manufacturers.
I'm sure you can figure out the problem.
Right. Strictly benefits Wall Street and all those people* who invest in those companies. They should all be punished for risking their money with the expectation of a financial reward. Their gains in stock value and dividend payments are all undeserved. We must crush their financial investments.
* Retirement plans in 401K investments, IRAs in mutual funds, etc. You know, people like us.
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