UK greenlights Broadcom's $61B VMware takeover

Broadcom was today given a provisional OK from the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) to close its $61 billion bid to acquire VMware, leaving only one major regulatory hurdle in the way of the deal: the US Federal Trade Commission. Having completed its in-depth phase 2 investigation that began in March, the CMA said an …

[Anonymous Coward]

Is VMware really still relevant?

All the useful features are in KVM/OVirt now. Sure there are rough edges... ...but really? Paying that much for it?

[Nate Amsden]

Re: Is VMware really still relevant?

Seems like a strange question to ask given VMware's market share. Rough edges are certainly problematic for many customers. Myself I stay behind the curve in esxi/vcenter and really have had no rough edges for over a decade. Even for "free", I'd rather use the free esxi(which I do at a colo for personal use) than use something else(my personal systems are standalone, no clustering/shared storage). Rock solid, which has made me a more loyal customer over the years(been with vmware since 1999). Only time I thought I'd jump ship was when they tried the vRAM tax, but they backed off that before I ever upgraded to the versions that had it.

ESXi has been coming down in cost (inflation adjusted) for at least the past 12 years now as the cost has been unchanged, so in that respect I feel it's not expensive at all. Only recent change was 32 core limits per socket per license, which still seems reasonable. Where the costs can go way up though is the addons. But core hypervisor+Esxi is cheap (even enterprise plus) given the value/stability it provides.