back to article VMware users gripe over 3-year commitment to renew licenses

VMware users continue to be unhappy with licensing changes since the virtualization giant was acquired by Broadcom, and are now complaining that they are being forced into three-year commitments when renewing vSphere licenses. Following the takeover of Virtzilla at the end of 2023, Broadcom has shaken things up with a switch …

  1. Mentat74
    Holmes

    "simplified" licensing...

    Yup... it's very simple... Broadcom wants more money...

  2. Guy de Loimbard Silver badge
    Holmes

    There's a theme here

    Broadcom didn't acquire VMWare for the good of it's end users.

    More of this to come as the washing is hung out to dry in front of the public.

    I suspect there will be many more tales of VMWare migrations!

    1. bigwiggle

      Re: There's a theme here

      You're definitely right that there will be more migrations but BCOM doesn't care. They know the cost of migration is very expensive for the largest customers. BCOM is counting on their largest customers deciding the licensing costs are still a lot cheaper than conducting a hypervisor migration. At that point, those customers will look to remove 3rd party products that have similar functionality to the entire VMware stack (such as monitoring) and leverage as much of the VMW stack as possible to reduce cost.

      The bulk of migrations will be from smaller customers that, again, BCOM doesn't care about. They're happy to let them go and focus on the big boys. There is a lot of opportunity there for other hypervisor vendors and migration services. I also think there is a huge opportunity for someone to develop automated migration tools.

      1. Pascal Monett Silver badge

        Their largest customers are leaving in droves. They have the resources to do so and, apparently, they look at the invoice and say : No.

        Broadcom will be left with the small fry, until another competitor eats its lunch.

        Frankly, that's all it deserves.

      2. FrankAlphaXII

        Re: There's a theme here

        Don't know why they're downvoting you, because honestly if I had the skill I'd be burning the midnight oil on making a migration tool for other Hypervisors precisely because Broadcom does not care about SMB, it never has. It never will.

        There's real opportunity here, and I'd say that's not limited to just SMB, even among the big players that Broadcom does want to fuck over long term (like what they did with CA), are probably at least glancing at the exits especially if they dealt with that previous acquisition.

      3. Charlie Clark Silver badge

        Re: There's a theme here

        I think it's naive to think that the largest companies will just suck it up and absorb the costs. Sure, they might well decide that a migration can't be rushed and will have to live for a while with higher prices, but if they haven't already started to look at migration, they will now. And I think the may be the start of price rises across what is now a pretty consolidate industry.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Look to the past to see the future

    Same playbook Broadcom ran for Symantec. Get the long term renewal ASAP, before anyone can migrate away. Then manically focus on those core customers, and pray it is enough to earn another renewal at the end of the contract.

    Five years later after acquisition.... "Symantec?" Who? Oh, I remember them. Where did they go??

    1. Charlie Clark Silver badge

      Re: Look to the past to see the future

      True, but I think many will find three years okay. What they won't like, if they don't then work on a migration strategy, are the next terms which will combine a heft price increase with an even longer licence period. Businesses that let this happen no one else but themselves to blame.

      We're up for renewal in just over a year, but I'm pretty certain we won't be renewing.

  4. AtomicWombat

    In addition to the obvious search for more money, this is all about maximizing the pain for anyone thinking of moving off VMware. Most organizations thinking of migrating off VMware (my employer included) were looking at getting a 1-year support extension to give some overlap time for whatever they're moving to. If that's hard to do, it's yet another disincentive from migrating.

    1. anonymous boring coward Silver badge

      Being FORCED to sign up for three years is a massive incentive FOR migrating.

      Just think of it as three years to really get it up and running perfectly. Unless you can rush it to do it before the new term, or negotiate a shorter term.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Suck it up

    If the price is too high, leave. If you don't leave then the price is not too high. Don't cry because the nasty shopkeeper has put her prices up . "I can get it cheaper in town but I have to get the bus there and back which makes buying my beans from Tesco more expensive than my corner shop. My corner shop should reduce its prices". Put on your big school pants and deal with it or find another shopkeeper. Broadcom should not reduce its prices to give its customers more profit and does not operate the welfare state for companies that choose to be unhappy . Customers should pay what they think the service is worth and if it is not worth it then jog on.

    1. Gene Cash Silver badge

      Re: Suck it up

      Obviously you're not an admin for a large company.

      It's not like you can drive down the road to the next shop. There's a lot of cost and risk with a migration to any kind of different software.

      Plus it's just a plain money-grubbing asshole move from Broadcom. I hope they reap the "rewards" of that.

    2. leexgx

      Re: Suck it up

      It's not that simple, you think you can just instantly migrate off you can't you got all the testing to do and migrate over 12 months is better to do, broadcom knows this and last attempt to get large wad of money before they become unprofitable

      Really company's should have planned sooner

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Suck it up

        Ultimately, the proprietary software industry is being done no favours by these machinations. Unless there's some legal loophole regarding an "implied contract" for future renewals, presumably every public company's risk register is going to have to have an entry for potential supplier greed and an obligation to mitigate it.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The cost of the license is a small fraction in the overall migration cost. Everyone I've spoken to in larger organisations are taking this as an opportunity to modernise their software. There are significant swaths of apps still running on W2K12 (or older) or out of date versions of Linux. Throw in legacy hardware, storage and networking if you are going to have to do this level of migration you might as well go the whole hog and modernise at the same time. Even if you decide to lift and shift then no organisation is mad enough not to want to test the hundreds or thousands of apps, that is putting aside the software vendors rubbing their hands together for a payday for KVM certification or whatever. Plus organising even a few minutes downtime can be a pain, yes we have maintenance windows but they aren't designed for such large scale disruption.

  7. CorwinX

    VMware waz a rare beast in software dev...

    ... they got it right.

    So of course some muppets have to come in and fcuk it up.

    I sincerely hope that serious effort goes into the alternatives going forward and Broadcom are left eating dust.

    Hope the tw@ts are proud of themselves.

    1. Charlie Clark Silver badge

      Re: VMware waz a rare beast in software dev...

      Yes, but that period ended years ago with the various purchases and flips. EMC, Dell, private… with someone skimming something off the top each time.

    2. DrXym

      Re: VMware waz a rare beast in software dev...

      VMWare was amazing in the early days. I remember running it on a PC back around 2000 and my mind was boggled by the concept and the potential. But I think as they grew and grew, they got a bit complacent. Virtualization is so well supported by hardware, operating systems and open source stacks that the value proposition of paying a small fortune to VMWare just isn't worth it for a lot of customers. And if VMWare decides to screw customers and lock them into longer contracts then it may motivate even more of them to explore alternatives.

      1. anothercynic Silver badge

        Re: VMware waz a rare beast in software dev...

        It was so much fun to beta test the early releases of Workstation. They didn't have EPP on their parallel port emulation, so it took a little while to get it. But once it was there, it was a breeze to use my old Logitech PP scanner with Windows 3.11 to scan things whilst running everything on Windows NT.

        Fusion was also fabulous (especially because it meant I could switch to Mac at home whilst hanging around Windows in the daytime), but I agree that Broadcom *really* screwed the pooch, and I'll see how long I'll last on the last version(s) of Fusion Pro I am licensed for. If Parallels manages to make it possible to run Intel x64 on ARM, I'm switching!

  8. Locomotion69 Bronze badge

    Looking for the magic number...

    There must be some magic number representing the money you can take from your customers before they decide to take the risk and migrate to another product. Broadcom knows it and is now slowly moving towards that number with its pricing policy.

    There has to be such a number as this applies to more products/industries/services.

    Is this taught on an MBA course?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Looking for the magic number...

      No. Broadcom /thought/ they knew it, but they obviously didn't.

    2. anonymous boring coward Silver badge

      Re: Looking for the magic number...

      Almost all those customers are working behind the scene to migrate ASAP.

  9. Dave 13

    Toxic dump?

    Dell's looking smarter by the day for dumping VMW when they did.

  10. Tron Silver badge

    If you put your tackle on someone else's chopping block...

    Assume that people will take as much advantage of you as they can and avoid lock ins. Have a plan B or at least a ramp to a plan B.

    Tech is only a benefit if the cost of it does not outweigh the utility. We all need to consider how we can use less tech. How much data do we really need to store? How integrated do our systems really need to be? Look back at how things were done in the 80s and 90s, when computers were less networked and software was an application on the hard drive of the user who needed it. Some tech options that we are in danger of becoming addicted to, may need to be dropped. Think of the tech industry as a drug cartel and consider how you might protect yourself from it, limiting your addiction and reducing your costs.

    Going forward, the way we work may need to use less tech and be a bit more retro.

    1. anonymous boring coward Silver badge

      Re: If you put your tackle on someone else's chopping block...

      "Assume that people will take as much advantage of you as they can and avoid lock ins. "

      In most cases companies work to retain goodwill and keep customers. Going for short term gains by alienating customers and screwing them over isn't a long term winning strategy. Obviously some top level people are only looking at quarterly results and their own massive compensation schemes.

  11. Marcelo Rodrigues
    Mushroom

    Jump ship NOW - or as soon as possible.

    I understand these kind of migrations are REALLY hard: it take years to do them right, and it's always a risk and a cost plus.

    BUT

    As Nike says: "Just do it".

    Not on a whim. Not from today to tomorrow. No, this ship has sailed. Renew today (this damned three year contract), and start NOW planning the migration. Take two years studying and planning. Use the last year to migrate - and give them the middle finger. Go on, they deserve it, and You know.

    Because if You think THIS contract is bad, wait until 3 years from now. And that one will pale, when compared to the one 6 years from now. You know I'm right.

  12. DrXym

    When companies do this...

    ... they're bleeding out. I bet a lot of VMWare customers are realising that instead of paying $$$$$ to VMWare they can pay $$ to use proxmox or openstack instead and have more control over their experience. It probably requires a lot of work to move but in the long term it means big savings. So VMWare changes its contract lock their customers in. I hope it motivates more customers to explore the alternatives.

  13. anonymous boring coward Silver badge

    I'm sure they can be "flexible" if you are a massive customer. Not so much otherwise.

    Worst bad faith opportunist grifters in a long while. Let them screw themselves.

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