VMware sues Siemens for allegedly using unlicensed software
- Reference: 1742967132
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2025/03/26/vmware_sues_siemens_for_using/
- Source link:
The case was filed last Friday in the US District Court for the District Delaware. VMware’s [1]complaint [PDF] alleges that Siemens AG’s US operations used more VMware software that it had licensed.
Siemens’s use of VMware became contentious when it tried to arrange extended support for some products.
[2]
On September 9, 2024, Siemens apparently produced a list of the VMware software it used and “demanded that VMware accept a purchase order to provide maintenance and support services for the listed products.”
[3]
[4]
The complaint states that list mentioned VMware deployments that “far exceeded the number of licenses it [Siemens] had actually purchased.”
Siemens demanded VMware accept a purchase order to provide maintenance and support services
VMware points out that Siemens had very good reasons to present an accurate list, because mentioning unlicensed products would expose it to legal peril and overstating the extent of its VMware usage would mean it paid more for licenses and support.
VMware claims it reviewed the list, noticed it included unlicensed software, and informed Siemens of its findings.
Siemens apparently responded by insisting the list was correct, demanded VMware accept it, and even threatened to sue the virtualization giant if it did not provide support services for the listed products.
[5]
Siemens felt it had grounds to sue because it had an option to purchase a one-year renewal of support services, believed it had exercised it, and felt VMware was not delivering.
VMware says it agreed to offer support for 30 days “under protest” and because it didn’t want to disrupt Siemens’s operations.
Siemens, meanwhile, appears to have revisited the list it provided in September.
[6]
In October, VMware claims Siemens “attempted to retract the list and to offer instead a new list that was closer in line with VMware’s records of Siemens AG’s licenses.”
The complaint alleges Siemens “never provided a credible explanation of why it would have presented and insisted on the accuracy of the September 9 List, if it did not represent its actual deployment of VMware products.”
Do you know more? The Register is interested to hear from VMware users navigating the changes brought by Broadcom. Contact us [7]here in confidence.
VMware is also upset that Siemens would not allow a software audit and alleges “other more cooperative and forthcoming customers do [this] without objection.”
Left unable to learn about the true extent of Siemens’s VMware estate, and fearing use of unlicensed software, Broadcom’s virtualization business unit felt it had no option but to sue.
[8]Broadcom has won. 70 percent of large VMware customers bought its biggest bundle
[9]Rackspace moving some of its own workloads off VMware to address bigger Broadcom bills
[10]VMware users gripe over 3-year commitment to renew licenses
[11]Parallels brings back the magic that was waiting seven minutes for Windows to boot
The Register sought comment from Siemens but had not received a response at the time of publication. We will update this story if we receive a substantial reply.
VMware wants a jury trial.
One more thing: In 2023, VMware and Siemens [12]teamed to showcase their shared vision for "The Next Era of Global Manufacturing Technology". We suspect that kind of joint presentation is less likely to happen while this case is in motion.
Download and license changes
The lawsuit was filed just three days before VMware [13]announced a change to the way customers download binaries of its products.
Effective April 24th, VMware will operate a single site for product downloads and customers will have to acquire a “download token” to get their hands on code. Each token is unique to the customer, enabling VMware to identify who downloads what.
Maybe that could have helped VMware understand if Siemens was staying within its license entitlements.
A VMware spokesperson told us the change will “ensure customers and channel partners can access our latest software in a secure and reliable manner.”
We asked what’s risky or unreliable about the current download arrangements – which use shared URLs – but have not received a response.
The change is not straightforward because some VMware products include the existing URLs for product downloads. Broadcom will offer a script to automate replacement of those URLs.
The download tokens are available in the Broadcom support portal, a service The Register ’s virtualization desk has often heard is not always reliable.
In other vNews
Another change that may be coming to VMware users is a new minimum licensing requirement that will make 72 cores the smallest allowed purchase for vSphere Standard and Enterprise Plus, the server-virtualization bundles .
Early commentary suggests small business customers see this change as a hostile action, as the processors powering their server fleets possess fewer than 72 cores. VMware’s per-core licensing means they’ll have to pay for software they can’t use.
We’ve seen several posts about the 72-core minimum and have asked VMware to confirm it but are yet to receive a reply.
One thing VMware has confirmed is changes to its annual Explore conference, which in most years occupied four days during August in Las Vegas and then visited Barcelona in October or November for a conference of the same duration.
As of 2025, the Vegas event will be the only four-day confab, and new “Explore On Tour” events will run for one day, or one-and-a-half days, in London, Paris, Frankfurt, Tokyo, Sydney, and Mumbai. ®
Get our [14]Tech Resources
[1] https://regmedia.co.uk/2025/03/26/pacer_vmware_vs_siemens.pdf
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/virtualization&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Z-PeV8SfJO5OfN3j-xVNOgAAAJY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/virtualization&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Z-PeV8SfJO5OfN3j-xVNOgAAAJY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/virtualization&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Z-PeV8SfJO5OfN3j-xVNOgAAAJY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/virtualization&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Z-PeV8SfJO5OfN3j-xVNOgAAAJY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/virtualization&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Z-PeV8SfJO5OfN3j-xVNOgAAAJY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://www.theregister.com/Author/Email/Simon-Sharwood
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2025/03/07/broadcom_q1_fy2025/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2025/02/05/rackspace_vmware_planet9_migration/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/23/customers_gripe_at_threeyear_commitment/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/16/parallels_x86_vms_on_apple_silicon/
[12] https://news.broadcom.com/manufacturing/siemens-vmware-explore-2023
[13] https://blogs.vmware.com/cloud-foundation/2025/03/24/download-changes-vmware-software-binaries/
[14] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Burning it down
They don't want the small business. That's fine. That will save small businesses a small fortune.
What I hope is that larger customers see a value in Proxmox or even HPE's new software and tell Broadcom to take a long walk off a short pier.
Re: Burning it down
And those small businesses, by the time they get to the size Broadcom wants to deal with, will have been using something else and are not going to want to migrate.
Where do Broadcom expect to get new customers?
I don't understand the new download token either. You have to be logged in to get the token, so that its linked to your account. But you have to be logged in now anyway to download the software too, so its also already linked to your account. And well, when you log in it says what you have downloaded in the past, so they do keep track already. So what exactly does the new token based approach do, apart from make it even more (the interface compared to what vmware used to have before going broadcom) of a crappy experience?
Its the same for downloading firmware for Brocade switches, you have to request the download, which takes time and they can reject, even if you have a contract.
Some people just like to get bent over...
...so many vendors you should be avoiding. Oracle, VMWare, Adobe, Unity.
Sure the competition is "10 years behind". That was the excuse 10 years ago too...
They’ll have to pay for software they can’t use
It's a funny old world. On one side we have developers rolling in cash from software that can't be used but must be paid for and on the other we have developers quitting because of software that's widely used by people who refuse to pay a thing.
Re: They’ll have to pay for software they can’t use
Thats the problem with opensource, if its 'free' then why pay anything for it, and the expectation is to keep getting it for free without having to put anything back.
The other is, companies that use the software may not want to donate / be associated with the software that they use for free. So their options are not to pay them, or to go via a 3rd party (support agreements) and hope that they actually contribute to the development via commits or contributions.
With closed source, paid for software, the expectation of free was never their. and there is no free loading like you can do with opensource (outside of pirating / not reporting in usage), so people keep using it as prices increase, up to the point where it becomes to much and the work to migrate to the opensource alternative and likely 'freeloading' is seen as more cost effective.
Re: They’ll have to pay for software they can’t use
"The other is, companies that use the software may not want to donate / be associated with the software that they use for free. So their options are not to pay them, or to go via a 3rd party (support agreements) and hope that they actually contribute to the development via commits or contributions."
A few examples:
There are a number of Linux distros for which you can buy support or buy as supported from their maintainers, from Red Hat ans Suse down to Zorin. No problem there.
LibreOffice you can buy commercial support from the project website.
PostgresSQL's main site lists companies from whom you can obtain commercial support. A simple search through their lists includes many who state that they are contributors to the project. Some individual contributors are named.
This does not deny that there are individual developers who are unpaid but this situation now seems to be receiving attention.
It's all far removed from paying for a subscription for support and wondering if that support is going to break you system on the second Tuesday of the month.
Re: They’ll have to pay for software they can’t use
> On one side we have developers rolling in cash from software that can't be used but must be paid for and on the other we have developers quitting because of software that's widely used by people who refuse to pay a thing.
That first lot of "developers" are companies, shareholders and management.
That second lot are actual developers, acting as individuals.
Not exactly comparable groups.
I can't believe Siemens got all shirty with VMware/Broadcom without first checking they were correctly licensed in the first place.
Given a large enough corporation some unlicensed installations would not be beyond belief.
OTOH some licencing systems are so convoluted one might almost imagine they were designed to create non-compliances - is VMware one of those?
You smell!
No! You smell!
No! You smell, with brass knobs on!
....
Seen it all before. I'll await the outcome with little interest.
On the 72 core minimum thing; Broadcom planning a 72 core chip any time soon?
drop it like it's hot
the only thing I don't understand in all this mess, is why not dump VMware? it's not that hard. most companies will help you on-board, and sometimes it can even be automated. VMware is no longer unique; they have nothing you can't get elsewhere
Re: drop it like it's hot
No, it's not that hard, but it is extremely time- and resource-intensive especially if you've got to move a ton of brittle legacy crap that your organisation insists on testing to death any time anyone touches it.
Also most organisations staying on-prem would need to buy new hardware to at least start standing up a parallel stack on, assuming they won't have enough spare capacity in prod to steal hardware from their existing stack.
It's not just something you can decide to do on a whim, and it doesn't come with zero cost, and definitely not zero opportunity-cost.
Burning it down
Broadcom are really going for the scorched-earth approach here…