back to article UK monopoly watchdog gives Broadcom-VMware probe a tight timetable

The UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has detailed its concerns about Broadcom's acquisition of VMware, plus a roadmap that would leave around two months to sort out any regulatory objections to the deal if Broadcom is to meet its self-imposed October 2023 deadline for the deal. The CMA on Friday updated its …

  1. Korev Silver badge
    Coat

    It looks like things are about to leap into vMotion...

  2. Hans 1
    Unhappy

    Broadcom is already sitting on several stacks of abandonware, this deal is very sad, it means the end of vmware R&D, expect price hikes and bad service.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I don't get it

    I hear the fear that Broadcom may optimize VMware for their chips, but I don't understand why that is a bad thing. Hear me out first...

    Let's say today's performance is 100% regardless of chip manufacturer (just to avoid any sort of other metrics). Broadcom acquires VMWare. Broadcom puts the chip people and the software people in the same room. The lightbulb turns on. Chips and/or VMWare is changed. Now the same test gets 120% performance on Broadcom chips. The same test still runs at 100% on non-Broadcom chips.

    That is not anti-competitive. That is just sharing intellectual property across the company, working together, and creating a better integration.

    No doubt if a chip competitor (like Intel) wants to sit down with the VMWare software people and exchange IP, the same performance gains could be realized. Since they ARE then competitors, that would never happen. That shouldn't hold back this deal though.

    And this whole argument presumes there are advantages to be had that are significant. Maybe VMWare is fully optimized today, there are no gains to be had, and this is just a straw man debate.

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