Broadcom has willingly dug its VMware hole, says cloud CEO
(2024/04/08)
- Reference: 1712593813
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2024/04/08/broadcom_vmware_civo/
- Source link:
interview Broadcom has faced a lot of heat for the direction it's taken VMware after acquiring it – and much of what has happened has confirmed the fears Virtzilla customers expressed well before that deal closed.
Mark Boost, CEO of UK-based cloud firm Civo, told The Register in an interview that Broadcom's strategy seems to be one of tossing most VMware clients to the wind while trying to retain the largest in a bid to drum up profits. You can watch the full interview below.
"It was very clear … that the focus was on just 600 accounts, I believe. And there were another 6,000 customers mentioned that they want to sustain," Boost told us. "It was mentioned specifically that a hundred thousand customers would trail off over time."
Many of those customers have expressed reservations over [1]forced bundle pricing that Boost said has resulted in considerably higher prices.
"We've seen as much as 10x price increases that people have told us about," Boost noted. "Typically we're hearing them from people that are saying, you know, anything from three to five [x higher pricing] on average."
[2]
"Time will tell" whether Broadcom can claw its way out of this hole, Boost said, "but a lot of this is by design." ®
Get our [3]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2024/04/02/vmware_cloud_foundation_updates_coming/
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/systems&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2ZhRo-YkOFE-d7TbaotlmDgAAAI8&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Mark Boost, CEO of UK-based cloud firm Civo, told The Register in an interview that Broadcom's strategy seems to be one of tossing most VMware clients to the wind while trying to retain the largest in a bid to drum up profits. You can watch the full interview below.
"It was very clear … that the focus was on just 600 accounts, I believe. And there were another 6,000 customers mentioned that they want to sustain," Boost told us. "It was mentioned specifically that a hundred thousand customers would trail off over time."
Many of those customers have expressed reservations over [1]forced bundle pricing that Boost said has resulted in considerably higher prices.
"We've seen as much as 10x price increases that people have told us about," Boost noted. "Typically we're hearing them from people that are saying, you know, anything from three to five [x higher pricing] on average."
[2]
"Time will tell" whether Broadcom can claw its way out of this hole, Boost said, "but a lot of this is by design." ®
Get our [3]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2024/04/02/vmware_cloud_foundation_updates_coming/
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/systems&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2ZhRo-YkOFE-d7TbaotlmDgAAAI8&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Joke's on them
David 132
Having a small number of very lucrative customers probably makes sense to the very clever MBA types, but it does rather change the supplier:customer power balance doesn’t it?
b1k3rdude
Yep good old corporate greed at its finest. Im just waiting for the day VMware player isnt free for home use anymore, then I will simple move to something else.
Alternative to Player with USB support?
Joel Mansford
VMWare player was always my go-to when I needed to pass-through USB devices, mainly when fiddling with car software, OBD cables and the like. These days what's a good alternative with USB pass-through support?
Joke's on them
The larger customers tend to have people in them that know all about Broadcom and have been working on moving off of VMWare for months now.
The problem is trust.
Broadcom's value proposition with VMWare presupposes that the customer trusts VMWare enough to put their entire virtualization stack in their product suite.
What will keep Broadcom from jacking up the price during the next renewal after you have fully migrated to their stack?
What will keep Broadcom from cutting resources used to maintain their product after enough people migrate fully to their stack?
I could keep going but you get the idea. Broadcom destroys software vendors. They did this with Symantec and will do it again here. In about 5 years maybe 10% of people currently using VMWare will be doing so.