back to article VMware's end-user compute products are for sale. Who might buy 'em?

Broadcom recently revealed it intends to divest VMware's end-user compute products, which span virtual desktops, app publishing, and device management. Let's ponder where they might land. The end-user compute (EUC) business unit celebrated its imminent spin-out, with VP and general manager Shankar Iyer writing "We view this as …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Citrix

    Dell killed off vWorkspace when they bought Quest as they didn't want an internal rival to Horizon when they owned VMWare.

    If Citrix were to buy VMWare EUC they would likely just kill it off to extinguish their main competition. Possibly cherry pick a few components where they may enhance CVAD, but most of it would be binned. Just depends how much they would be willing to spend to kill a rival and whether any competition watchdogs would veto the move.

  2. Mishak Silver badge

    Where do VMware Fusion and the like fit in all of this?

    Is it time for Mac users to move to Parallels? Fusion is looking very "behind the curve" these days - it doesn't support running Sonoma (last time I looked), and Windows 11 on M2/3 is still a right pain.

    1. ssharwood

      Re: Where do VMware Fusion and the like fit in all of this?

      Fusion and Workstation are being kept- they're considered core

    2. Stuart Castle Silver badge

      Re: Where do VMware Fusion and the like fit in all of this?

      I have to admit, I thought it was, but can't find any official announcement, and, TBH, having tried Sonoma as a guest OS on Fusion, it's bloody unreliable. BTW, I'm also running Sonoma as a host, and have a good reason for a Sonoma guest machine. Part of my job is testing software, and I need an easy way to restore a machine to a known good state, with nothing important lost. VMs with snapshots are ideal for this.

  3. Pcoughlin404
    FAIL

    You missed one

    Cisco is my dark horse in this race. Buying somewhat useful technologies and killing them forever is right in their wheelhouse.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Private Equity

    It wouldn't surprise me if EUC is sold off to private equity. That does leave Tibco is a possibility. As a customer, I certainly hope that doesn't happen.

  5. NoneSuch Silver badge
    Windows

    Microsoft – Not a contender, as it's too busy with cloudy – and Arm-powered – PCs.

    It depends what IP comes with the company.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    PE the only option

    The biz suppose to be close to $2b a year .

    The buyer will need to have a min of $6-8b to pay for it. No tech co with a strategic or even adjacent interest would spend that $ on it.

    This is a cash cow financial opportunity for whoever can get the best loan to buy AND provide the biz framework to operate this. PEs are the only organizations equipped to deal with this beasts.

    My $ goes to silver lake who has been milking this cow for 10 years now (?)

    The complete independence of this BU inside of VMW is a gross exaggeration operationally and technically. A lot of PAIN is still to be released to customers and employees.

  7. Vocational Vagabond
    Devil

    Meh..

    KVM works on my box fine .. Maybe "The Lawnmower" would want it as a stablemate for Virtualbox... He's decided to tax corprorate users on the Saddle not the Horse, after deciding to enforce 'extentions plugin' for drag'n'drop bells and whistes is paid for 'commercial' use now (audit item!..), when Virtualbox DT binary, it's self is a freebie. So .. maybe more money for vitzilla DT kit is a future thing ..

  8. Vicky KBS

    Hope Broadcom is not shortsighted.

    My View is Nothing might happen. Remember when Broadcom had this funny vision about changing the Core licensing model for VMware products while it was still discussing the acquisition agreements, well the backlash it received from VMware clients put the fear of god in Broadcom. Now coming to EUC products, Broadcom again seems to have not put much thought before announcing its intent. They need to understand that VDI business is here to stay. It's true it never achieved the pinnacle it was destined for due to the hardware performance related issues resulting in shitty user experience. The performance issues have now been addressed with the advent of Hybrid cloud/Hyperconverged infra. It is now a matter of time before most of the customers brush up their legacy infra. Assuming Broadcom understands this better and does not act in haste.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Lack of Understanding of EUC

    This article shows a dramatic lack of understanding of VMware EUC. Horizon VDI is a part of it but not the largest part. AirWatch is mentioned in passing but it hasn't gone by that name in many years now and is the largest share of the business.

    In addition, there is little to no overlap of the buyers on the VMware Broadcom side and the VMware EUC side.

  10. Mike_in_the_house

    Hummm late the reporting party aren’t we? https://www.techtarget.com/searchVirtualDesktop/opinion/Broadcom-intends-to-divest-VMware-EUC-Whats-next

    1. ssharwood

      Late to report? No. We reported the divestment plan DURING Broadcom's earnings call. If we weren't first, we were among the first handful to report this.

      We then CHOSE to offer commentary on that decision at a later date. And did so without reading the TechTarget piece.

      Commentary doesn't always need to follow events closely.

  11. Mike_in_the_house

    late to the news party.

    Looks like this has been covered already… https://www.techtarget.com/searchVirtualDesktop/opinion/Broadcom-intends-to-divest-VMware-EUC-Whats-next

  12. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

    Network Computer

    I’m still waiting for Larry Ellison’s 90s vision of the Network Computer to become reality

    The Network Computer happened. Several times — dumb terminals, smart terminals, X terminals, Telnet / rsh / ssh, actual Ellison-Schmidt-style "network computers" like the IBM Network Station, KVMs, remote-screen systems like VNC, virtual-desktop systems like Citrix, and now pervasive browser-hosted RIAs and SPAs. Chromebooks happened and smartphones happened.

    Network Computer is unlikely to happen harder than it already has. That basket has as many eggs as most people want to put in it.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Everyone that has it already wishes they went with Citrix instead.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      No the are not

      lol, nice try. No one is happy staying with Citrix.

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