back to article AT&T sues Broadcom for 'breaking' VMware support extension contract

US telecoms giant AT&T has alleged Broadcom reneged on an extended support deal it struck with VMware, and warned the consequences could be massive outages for customer support operations – and even the US president's office. A complaint [PDF] filed last week in the Supreme Court of New York State explains that AT&T holds …

  1. Pascal Monett Silver badge

    A perpetual license, eh ?

    Well, now we know just how far Broadcom is willing to go to honor the obligations of the company it bought . . . aka no farther than you can throw it.

    This is indeed going to be interesting. A Board who thinks it has all the rights vs a Fortune 500 company that holds part of the security interests of the nation at stake. And all of this based on legal contract.

    Methinks Broadcom is going to be eating humble pie pretty soon . . .

  2. Groo The Wanderer

    I spent two hours trying to find and download the latest VMware Workstation 17.6 installer after 17.5.5 refused to run my VMs, but you have to be a "member" to download it.

    So I reinstalled 17.5.0, booted my VMs, extracted their data, and now Broadcom is invited to insert an unlubricated pineapple up the collective rectal sphincters of the CEO, CFO, board members, and top level management.

    And they should be sure to use a fresh pineapple for each insertion; it wouldn't be sanitary otherwise. Wouldn't want management to get any more itches or brain-farts...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      I migrated my images to KVM. Fairly straight forward, and I haven't looked back since. It's more than adequate for my purposes.

    2. J. Cook Silver badge
      Go

      But Groo: Tell us how you FEEL. :D :D :D

      (probably like the rest of us who are Not Pleased with Broadcom, to be fair.)

  3. the_bunse

    I work in a blue chip FTSE100 company and we like many others we talk to have chosen an alternative and will be working over the next year to leave VMware behind. We were left with no choice as we were given the same treatment as AT&T. I am not aware of any large company we talk with keeping VMware beyond the next 18 months. So Broadcom might see some Perpetual license owners renew at the greatly inreased prices in the short term. In the next 6-18 months VMware will be in trouble with a small percentage of the pie. Other companies seem to want the busines and are falling over themselves to help customers move and stay with them.

    We saw a similar pricing change with Veeam a few years ago but they were smart enough to back tracked behind the scenes and kept the Bluechips as customers. A very smart move as they know others were waiting to pounce. Broadcom does not seem to understand that VMware has competitors and customers have options....

    1. MONK_DUCK

      Completely agree the conversations from the mid and large caps all seem to be around accelerating their migration plans, rather than if they are moving away from vmware.

      1. J. Cook Silver badge
        Childcatcher

        While I've not gotten budgeting quotes from the likes of, say, Nutanix, or from our VAR for side-loading enterprise support for ProxMox to us, the renewal quote for our VMWare environment was... brisk- As in "the mafia calls that rate brisk." or "We could migrate to some other platform for that much money" brisk.

        Thankfully, I've been hording some of our old out of production servers so that I could make a sandbox to test this migration. :)

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Properly constructed VM's

    Can be migrated between hyperviser systems. Hypervisors are commodities.

    1. chivo243 Silver badge
      Holmes

      Re: Properly constructed VM's

      Right you are, but it's the Virtual distributed Switches and such that are a pain or impossible to migrate\extract\export <-> Import

    2. Roj Blake Silver badge

      Re: Properly constructed VM's

      Yes, but are you willing to bet your business on the VMs being properly constructed?

  5. Plest Silver badge
    Mushroom

    No surprise to learn the Broadcom share price as tripled in the last 2 years, that's all us being pulled through the wringer of their subs dept!

    1. Oneman2Many Bronze badge

      I assume you are planning on getting of VMWare then ?

  6. Pete Sdev

    IANAL

    Sounds like a straightforward breach of contract.

    If AT&T can extend the support for 2 years before the current support period expires, than Broadcom have to provide it, presumably at a prior agreed price.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: IANAL

      And there lies the sticky wicket. Broadcom didn't actually say "NO" to the extended support. If the previous contract did not specify a price point, well.....too bad....contracts being legal documents and lawyers are now involved.

      Reg, where is the popcorn icon, this will be fun to watch!

      1. Nik 2
        Mushroom

        Re: IANAL

        This is the popcorn icon. If you have enough popcorn...

      2. Snake Silver badge

        Re: IANAL

        The story explicitly states "current deal". Most contracts written by anyone with a brain would specify that current conditions apply to any term extension, and it would be reasonable to assume that AT&T lawyers aren't morons.

  7. Marty McFly Silver badge
    Coat

    I've seen this sales play somewhere before, but where..?

    Get customers hooked on a product at a cheap price point. Then change the sales model at renewal time, and force customers to pay more. Make it cost prohibitive if they try to leave.

    Oh, yeah, that's right! This is how telecom companies work with their cell phone and internet service contracts. I knew I had seen this market strategy before!

    Surely AT&T isn't going to complain about this business practice?

    1. chivo243 Silver badge
      Facepalm

      Re: I've seen this sales play somewhere before, but where..?

      Adobe comes to mind!

    2. Nik 2

      Re: I've seen this sales play somewhere before, but where..?

      This is the key difference between a 'cell phone' and a 'mobile', because in the UK a mobile contract can be ported in 24 hours with no cost and no inconvenience whatsoever :-)

    3. Michael 66

      Re: I've seen this sales play somewhere before, but where..?

      I understand that drug dealers also use this sales technique.

      1. J. Cook Silver badge

        Re: I've seen this sales play somewhere before, but where..?

        ... along with certain Sith Lords from a Galaxy Far, Far, Away.

        "I have altered the deal, pray I don't alter it further."

        (RIP James earl Jones.)

    4. Slow Joe Crow
      Mushroom

      Re: I've seen this sales play somewhere before, but where..?

      Let it burn, in the US cell numbers port just as quickly so I ditched AT&T for Straight Talk years ago and I have gone from running lots of VMware to running none. My current SMB IT gig is all Hyper V and I'll be dusting off my KVM knowledge when time permits.

  8. ecarlseen

    "Significantly more difficult," you say?

    From the lawsuit:

    "7. Additionally, the support services enable tens of thousands of agents at various

    AT&T customer contact centers to assist roughly 1,000,000 AT&T customers every day with

    their communication needs. Without the support services, it is not a question of if but when the

    software will crash due to a software error, security issue, or lack of upgrades and maintenance.

    When that happens, these 1,000,000 daily customers will find it significantly more difficult to

    resolve issues with their accounts because thousands of fewer customer contact agents will be

    available to assist them."

    Having managed AT&T accounts with fairly significant monthly and annual spending figures, I'm darkly curious to find out how this could possibly be made worse.

    1. Richard 12 Silver badge
      Trollface

      Re: "Significantly more difficult," you say?

      Just imagine if they couldn't play the recorded "Your call is important to us" messages anymore.

  9. An_Old_Dog Silver badge
    Meh

    Both Sides

    1. Broadcom are being corporate jerks, and I hope they get their comeuppance.

    2. AT&T voluntarily built-in their systems' dependency on VMware. They have no right to cry, "Think of the children our important customers!"

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Maybe they are running something special...

    Sounds like they were running something like the version they run on robots that had some differences from the full installable. It had specific limits, did a few things nicer than normal ESXi and was used more than you realize. I heard that this was killed by Broadcom.

  11. cd

    Of all the companies to complain...

    ...about sharp practices and bad faith.

  12. Jadith

    I guess that's the problem with going after the big fish

    They can bite back when you try to put the screws to them.

  13. Dafyd Colquhoun
    Pirate

    Experts in shakedowns

    Well, you'd expect AT&T's lawyers to know a shake down when they see one. Must be strange for them to be on the receiving end for a change.

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon

Other stories you might like