Broadcom Throws VMware Customers On Perpetual Licenses a Lifeline (theregister.com) 40
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Register: In a Monday post, Broadcom CEO Hock Tan restated his belief that VMware's portfolio was too complex, and too poorly integrated, for the virtualization giant to represent true competition for hyperscale clouds. Broadcom's injection of R&D cash, he insisted, will see VMware's flagship Cloud Foundation suite evolve to become more powerful and easy to operate. He also admitted that customers aren't enjoying the ride. "As we roll out this strategy, we continue to learn from our customers on how best to prepare them for success by ensuring they always have the transition time and support they need," he wrote. "In particular, the subscription pricing model does involve a change in the timing of customers' expenditures and the balance of those expenditures between capital and operating spending."
Customers also told Tan that "fast-moving change may require more time, so we have given support extensions to many customers who came up for renewal while these changes were rolling out." That's one of the changes -- Broadcom has previously not publicly suggested such extensions would be possible. "We have always been and remain ready to work with our customers on their specific concerns," Tan wrote. The other change is providing some ongoing security patches for VMware customers who persist with their perpetual licenses instead of shifting to Broadcom's subs. "We are announcing free access to zero-day security patches for supported versions of vSphere, and we'll add other VMware products over time," Tan wrote, describing the measure as aimed at ensuring that customers "whose maintenance and support contracts have expired and choose to not continue on one of our subscription offerings." The change means such customers "are able to use perpetual licenses in a safe and secure fashion."
Customers also told Tan that "fast-moving change may require more time, so we have given support extensions to many customers who came up for renewal while these changes were rolling out." That's one of the changes -- Broadcom has previously not publicly suggested such extensions would be possible. "We have always been and remain ready to work with our customers on their specific concerns," Tan wrote. The other change is providing some ongoing security patches for VMware customers who persist with their perpetual licenses instead of shifting to Broadcom's subs. "We are announcing free access to zero-day security patches for supported versions of vSphere, and we'll add other VMware products over time," Tan wrote, describing the measure as aimed at ensuring that customers "whose maintenance and support contracts have expired and choose to not continue on one of our subscription offerings." The change means such customers "are able to use perpetual licenses in a safe and secure fashion."
Weird move (Score:5, Insightful)
Given that everything to date looked like the new model was squeezing the locked-in customers for everything until the business finally collapsed, I will admit to not understanding this move, even if it is just PR bullshit.
VMWare is a zombie product, nobody with any brains is going to hold on longer than they have to.
Re:Weird move (Score:5, Insightful)
people are leaving too quickly for his acquisition bonus to kick in.
Mainframe license echo (Score:1)
It's the mainframe license effect, company wants to get out of its long standing licensing agreements and salvage its business name.
Strategies
- Stop updating the product except to bump the version number once every 2 years, let bugs accumulate and bit rot to set in
- Make updates with lots of breaking changes
- Retire the documentation, examples, scripts, training and anything else to hide the product from view and make it less usable. Hire replacements to write bare bones misleading documentation
- 'Sell' th
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
While I'm no Oracle fan, VirtualBox remains free. There are numerous alternatives, each with their own quirks.
There are lots of alternatives suddenly gnawing at VMWare, and their client base is unhappy, to say the least. Some MBA class ought to be taught on glaring examples of how to thwart your own acquisition with bad projections and client-base mismanagement.
"Oh yeah, this is gonna be a freaking goldmine!" Then aim the barrel at your Nike Golds and shoot your foot, repeatedly pulling the trigger, until
Re: (Score:3)
Prior to Broadcom, I had no hesitation recommending VMWare, either ESXi or Player. The current trajectory for the product line would make choosing it a stupid decision now.
Re: (Score:2)
Two possibilities:
- Regulatory folks have expressed "concerns", which may have motivated them to try to get some relief
- The had a plan that at least publicly anticipated tolerating 95% attrition and the other 5% were so locked in they'd pay the price needed to more than make up for the 95%. Based on a few situations I have heard about, I get the impression that not even 5% were as locked in as Broadcom presumed, so they may feel the need to buy some time to adjust their strategy to cope with that reality.
Re: (Score:3)
Basically a big miscalculation of what people would do. I guess they expected a good chunk of people to have been stuck and continue to pay, and they made such changes so quickly everyone decided to ditch rather than stay.
It's the problem - they went from acquiring to making changes way too quickly and people generally get very scared at that. The speed of which basically started everyone into looking at alternatives.
And alternatives exist - ProxMox even gained the ability to import ESXi machines.
The proble
Re: (Score:2)
Exactly. "fast-moving change"?? How often do licenses change???
It takes 5 years to build trust with customers and 5 seconds to lose it.
Re: (Score:2)
VMWare is a zombie product, nobody with any brains is going to hold on longer than they have to
WTF are you even talking about? VMWare workstation is by far the most popular desktop hypervisor to exist
Re:Weird move (Score:4, Insightful)
VMWare is a zombie product, nobody with any brains is going to hold on longer than they have to
WTF are you even talking about? VMWare workstation is by far the most popular desktop hypervisor to exist
Sure, the most popular.....for now. And I think that was the point: they won't be putting any money into new feature, innovations, etc. The intent is to squeeze VMWare like a big chicken for as long as they can. Customers would be ill-advised to remain on such a platform any longer than they have to.
Re:Weird move (Score:4, Funny)
It died when Broadcom pulled it's stunt. It's still in use, so zombie. Only, instead of "brains!", it's moaning "money!".
Re: (Score:2)
It's only available in licensed format from now on IIRC. You used to be able to buy it.
Translation (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
An alternative read might go something like this: "Now we're having a fire sale!"
Re: (Score:3)
retarded leadership? why we only select the best from what boeing has to offer
Re: (Score:2)
I just checked with my friend that's a special ed teacher. She told her class about the broadcom/vmware deal and now her entire class of special needs kindergartners feel better about their situation. So, I guess there is some good that came out of all this.
Excuses, excuses⦠(Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
itâ(TM)s hard to read this as anything other than an awkward
â(TM)Indeed!â(TM)
That's funny because customers... (Score:3)
That's funny because customers are tired of being raked over the coals with the ridiculous price increases with little of value being offered in return.
Apparently Broadcom doesn't understand that customers don't like being exploited. Especially when you have customers that are knowledgable about the value of the product they are using where Broadcom is coming from such a high level of understanding that they simply don't have a clue what they are doing.
For all intents and purposes, they look like they were trying to troubleshoot a perceived problem poorly by making all sorts of changes and not bothering to see what was or wasn't working and what changes impacted anything else. End result is, "Well it works now but I don't know what fixed it." or "Well it's really broke now and I don't know what I did to make it worse." Broadcom's efforts definitely resulted in the latter circumstance.
Re: That's funny because customers... (Score:1)
Rewritten Lede (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
that force a change in customers' expenditures
No, no...didn't you see where he said it was only affecting the *TIMING* of those expenditures and the *BALANCE* between capital and operating?
Biggest bunch of weasel words I've ever seen in my life. If I didn't already have enough reasons to abandon VMWare, I definitely do now.
give Broadcom the virtual middle finger
I see what you did there. LOL!
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Broadcom CEO Hock Tan has realized that fast-moving changes to the subscription pricing model that force a change in customers' expenditures is causing many customers to reevaluate their loyalty to VMware products. Rather than pony up additional cash, Tan has seen many customers give Broadcom the virtual middle finger and switch to alternative platforms such as those based on OpenStack, Harvester, or other low or no-cost technologies. In a last ditch effort to salvage what's left of their customer base, Broadcom will be providing some ongoing security patches for customers who persist with their perpetual licenses instead of ceding to Broadcom's blatant extortion demands.
The reality is, they're switching to public cloud offerings like Azure, AWS or GPC because even though they're more expensive, they're less expensive than the price rises.
It's to late! (Score:2)
Sub Uptake (Score:3)
I don't know the numbers, but maybe they've been slow to fill out their perceived top 600. Or some of those "dedicated" orgs they'd eyed as their elite portfolio bailed on the overall show of ill will. Doesn't sound like their plan has changed to much and maybe they realized they aren't going to make the numbers they thought and need to groom (by giving them platitudes) some of these perpetual license holders long enough to see if they'll just give up and go subscription. Not everyone is going to want to hassle with a change. People that use software will put up all kinds of abuse, just not to have change or say that there is someone to call--whether there is or not is visionary at setup time and actual service results vary widely in practice. In other words, don't drink the drink you are given. Keep moving away--out the door, to freedom.
Re: (Score:3)
My take is that some of their treasured top customers have started withdrawing from using vmware because they don't want to fuck with Broadcom's altering the deal further. They didn't become the most successful companies and therefore able to be the biggest customers by letting other corps fuck them over. They want to be the ones doing the fucking, so in that spirit, fuck Broadcom.
In that light, this move makes sense, except that it's way too late. Here is the pulse, and here is Broadcom's finger, far from
Hold my beer (Score:5, Funny)
Broadcom/VMware: Hold my beer.
vmware needs to add stuff like direct ceph support (Score:2)
vmware needs to add stuff like direct ceph support not higher prices.
Other VM systems are getting better and when they add stuff that vmware has and they don't. vmware useage may drop big time.
Too late (Score:3)
I expect many VMware customers are already deep in the eval process of other technologies, and will be jumping ship as they are able. If they were smart they started this about the same time broadcom got involved.
I'm getting a real mid-2000's Novell vibe off of VMware right now.
Re: (Score:2)
It's sad because Novell did some pretty impressive things well and I still miss them. We were with them through the Linux transition and wanted to go further but alas, it wasn't in the cards.
Free Access? (Score:2)
Free access to zero day patches?
If it is known about, and there is a patch, it is not a zero day anymore.
This helped me (Score:1)
Joke's on you China boy (Score:2)
"As we roll out this strategy, we continue to learn from our customers on how best to prepare them for success by ensuring they always have the transition time and support they need,"
These customers are rope-a-doping you while they migrate off your platform. The only thing you'll be getting from many of them is an invite to kiss their fat asses.
Anyone know... (Score:2)
What those 'Perpetual' licenses actually said? I have to wonder if someone read the paperwork and had their lawyers give Broadcom a call.
No thanks... (Score:2)
and goodbye.