Ahh Broadcome the harbinger of doom
Even if Broadcom mean it: that they intend to keep all of VMware's customers and grow the business as an independent unit I am not sure they know how. Broadcom will also have the same advisors (accountants lawyers managers whoever) telling them there is an opportunity to hurt the competition by ending support for a competitor.... If they mismanage it or break legacy kit for the sake of it as everyone has pointed out those on the road to public cloud can go to Azure, AWS, Google cloud... instead of whatever VM Ware are doing and those stuck with VM's can use Microsoft Hyper V or KVM or even IBM system i or Joyent or PROXMOX. There is also the container space Docker and LXC/LXD and Kubernetes and so on. And as noted all of these can work with Terraform, PowerShell desired state config, ansible, and so on just as well as VMWare. Most of these alternatives are all still adding features and if VMware stips support and drops stuff well you know. Even those customers who have custom solutions and decades of investment after being forced to replace all the kit in a DC will not have the same brand loyalty in the long run and may use a different platform for greenfield systems.
So I hope Broadcom can pull it off and grow a profitable company without destroying it but much like the people the Reg talked to I will not hold my breath.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
