VMware reboots its partner program again – and it looks like smaller players are out
- Reference: 1752647466
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2025/07/16/vmware_reboots_partner_program_again/
- Source link:
Australian IT service provider Interactive outlined the changes on Wednesday in a [1]post that explained the changes with the following five points:
Partner Reduction: The new program significantly reduces the number of authorised partners, being a by-invitation-only program. As a result on July 15, 2025 VCSP partners who are not invited to participate in the new Program for VCSP partners will be sent a notice of non-renewal.
Transition Period Until 31 October, 2025: Non-invited partners can continue to transact until 31 October 2025. After that date, they may only service existing VCSP commitment contracts for the remainder of the current term. No new commitment contracts or renewals will be accepted for those partners.
White Label Program Ending: Broadcom is also sunsetting the White Label model on 31 October 2025. The same transitional commercial conditions apply to White Label contracts as stated above.
Immediate Impact: Departing partners are encouraged to work with authorised VCSP partners to ensure a smooth transition for customers who seek to renew a service at the end of their current term.
Shift Toward Hyperscale Private Compute: Broadcom is reshaping its vision for private compute, whereby VMware Cloud Foundation 9 underpins a small number [of] hyperscale private cloud platforms in each region. A future where customers buy managed infrastructure from partners like Interactive to support their compute requirements.
Interactive also warned that customers whose partners are no longer part of the partner program could expect the change to effect:
Your ability to renew licenses through your existing partner
The support and service quality you’ve come to expect
Potential delays or confusion during upcoming renewals or service requests
Potential cost increases as partner consolidation may led additional costs for migration and re-onboarding, and reduced bundling options that previously allowed for greater cost efficiencies
The Register shared the above with VMware which did not dispute the contents and responded with the following statement:
Broadcom's strategy since closing the VMware acquisition has been to drive simplification, consistency, and innovation across the VMware Go To Market ecosystem, including VMware Cloud Service Providers (VCSPs).
Recent changes to this ecosystem are consistent with this strategy. Broadcom is focusing more and going deeper with the VCSPs who have demonstrated commitment to their cloud services built on VMware. This will enable us to deliver greater value, stronger execution, and a more streamlined experience for Broadcom’s VMware customers of all sizes and enable a truly competitive offering to the hyperscalers through our CSPs.
VMware also told us that “Non-renewing partners can continue to support their existing customers until the end of their current commit contract term including co-termed capacity orders. Non-renewing partners are encouraged to work with authorized VCSP partners to ensure a smooth transition for customers who seek to renew a service at the end of their current term.”
This is the second major shakeup for VMware partners in eighteen months, after the Broadcom business unit’s January 2024 [2]decision to terminate members that operated VMware-powered clouds that ran on fewer than 3,500 processor cores.
That change caused great unease. Axed service providers could not secure licenses to run VMware-powered clouds, leaving them with hardware they could not legally use for its intended purpose. Customers of axed partners faced forced migrations.
[3]
VMware responded to community concerns by creating a [4]“white label program” that allowed small cloud operators – now known as “secondary partners” – to acquire licenses from the “primary partner” that remained in its channel.
[5]
[6]
The white label program will soon be history, meaning many VMware users will need to find a new home.
The Register understands that Broadcom’s changes mean some mid-size partners won’t be invited to the new program.
Critical VMware flaws of the worst sort – a guest escape VMware on Tuesday [7]divulged three critical flaws in eight of its products.
VMware’s [8]FAQ warns the flaws allow a dreaded VM escape.
“This is a situation where an attacker who has already compromised a virtual machine's guest OS and gained privileged access (administrator or root) could escape into the hypervisor itself. These issues are resolved by updating ESX.”
The critical flaws - CVE-2025-41236, CVE-2025-41237, CVE-2025-41238 – are rated 9.3/10 and allow an attacker with administrative privileges to execute code on a host machine.
“These issues qualify under ITIL methodologies as an emergency change, requiring prompt action from your organization,” according to VMware’s advisory.
One such provider, Aussie Broadband, would not confirm to The Register that Broadcom has been invited into the new program.
“Aussie Broadband is aware of Broadcom’s announced changes to its Cloud Partner Program and can confirm that customers will see no impact to their continuity of service in the immediate term,” the company said by email. “We are continuing to review alternative long-term solutions, and will communicate any changes or impacts to our customers once more information is available.”
+COMMENT Justifiable anger and fear
Enterprise software buyers and channel players value vendors which offer consistency, predictability, and stability.
The VMware ecosystem now has good reason to fear Broadcom is capricious, because just last March the company [9]hailed its revised partner program as ideal for customers and partners alike.
[10]
By changing its partner program twice within 18 months, Broadcom will therefore anger and disappoint many customers by forcing them to make a costly and complex cloud migration.
Partners that made the cut a year ago and have now been ejected will likely be furious – and with good cause because they will have invested in VMware practices that may soon be dust.
Broadcom always insists its decisions benefit its customers and recently [11]celebrated Dutch bank ING going all-in on its public cloud vision as an example of how a large corporate sees value in its approach.
[12]
But The Register consistently hears that many VMware customers plan to quit the vStack, even if doing so means buying time by subscribing to Broadcom software they’ll never use. VMware pros tell us they’re developing skills in different fields.
Broadcom points to growing VMware revenue as evidence its approach is working.
Acquisitions are seldom quick or clean. While Broadcom can point to improved software and product development prowess, this one has been painful for VMware customers who surely now deserve a period of calm and predictability, even if that's not the best outcome for Broadcom shareholders. ®
Get our [13]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.interactive.com.au/news/broadcom-closing-vmware-partners-program/
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2024/01/10/broadcom_ends_vmware_partner_program/
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/channel&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aHd4NZ5fR9queGVkW8iO8AAAABI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2024/03/19/vmware_by_broadcom_white_label/
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/channel&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aHd4NZ5fR9queGVkW8iO8AAAABI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/channel&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aHd4NZ5fR9queGVkW8iO8AAAABI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://support.broadcom.com/web/ecx/support-content-notification/-/external/content/SecurityAdvisories/0/35877
[8] https://github.com/vmware/vcf-security-and-compliance-guidelines/tree/main/security-advisories/vmsa-2025-0013
[9] https://news.broadcom.com/technologies/new-era-for-vmware-cloud-service-provider-partners
[10] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/channel&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aHd4NZ5fR9queGVkW8iO8AAAABI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[11] https://www.linkedin.com/posts/krish-prasad-414b13_vmwarecloudfoundation-activity-7349117729036980224-scds/
[12] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/channel&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aHd4NZ5fR9queGVkW8iO8AAAABI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[13] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Ahem, I think the Raspberry Pi could be hailed as an open source success story… and yet it has always used Broadcom chips.
Computing infrastructure should be boring ...
Predictable, reliable, just there and works for as long as needed. Unpredictable infrastructure means that the IT department cannot provide what is needed for the business to thrive.
Broadcom is demonstrating how it cannot be part of any business stack.
What will be next ? An exit fee once a business stops using Broadcom software ?
Re: Computing infrastructure should be boring ...
The basic idea is to follow the practices that have worked so well for Oracle and SAP: make leaving the platform too difficult and expensive to be contemplated. And if everyone else in your industry is using similar systems, there will be no need to fear the competition.
Broadcom only interested in $$$ - who would have thought it?
In case anybody missed the smoking gun in the article, this is ALL that Broadcom care about: "Broadcom points to growing VMware revenue as evidence its approach is working."
If you continue to use their products you will be continually squeezed for more - it's really that simple.
Re: Broadcom only interested in $$$ - who would have thought it?
Shareholders might also note that short term increases in revenue seem to be the only thing Broadcom's management care about.
Having pissed off most of their customer base, they now seem to be attacking their routes to market, so they won't have a way to sell the product that no-one wants to buy.
Re: Broadcom only interested in $$$ - who would have thought it?
It does make a strange kind of sense.
80/20 Again
Companies love to shut down smaller resellers citing that 80% of their revenue comes from 20% of their resellers. Doesn't take many iterations to reach a point where there's nobody left. Plus there's no opportunities for new resellers to join the party.
When I worked in Channel Sales for a software company, we used to deal with some ridiculously small resellers. Most disappeared, some didn't. It's just a case of dealing with them as efficiently as possible.
Re: 80/20 Again
but also as small clients grow and staff move to larger companies and careers progress and staff move the introduce the reseller to new / larger customers
the company I work for one of our customers went bust (no fault of theirs) and 4 of the senior IT staff have now brought large new customers to us,
as they say from little acorns large oak trees grow
and history repeats its self as Broadcom unloads both barrels into both feet again
back in 2011 they tried changing the licensing model from per CPU to ram based
it lead to a mass move from VMware to Hyper-v, the sudden loss of revenue caused a rethink and rapid back pedal https://itassetmanagement.net/2012/08/26/vmware-vram/
seems broadcom are repeating history by playing with a licensing model to increase income and profits without thinking what their customers will think and do
last time the haven was M$ and hyper-v as no other real alternative, this time there is KVM on Linux as well as several other open source alternatives so I think Broadcom will pretty much kill VMware if they persist
and as to stripping all the small consultancies out of the partner network I think that is a reload and fire both barrels a 2nd time, its the same as IBM and java mass exodus time to open source
Those in the open source community have known for years that life is simpler when you avoid Broadcom. It looks like companies are starting to learn that lesson as well.