Understanding the Impact of Vmware's Acquisition

Licensing chaos meets M&A blind spots When Siemens inherited Brocade’s VMware licenses, it also inherited a legal fight. And the bigger picture? This is just one of many stories playing out as Broadcom pushes a new VMware licensing model post-acquisition. I spoke with Maria Korolov at Network World about the hidden risks in tech M&A, including: OEM licensing that dies quietly post-deal Developers spinning up untracked VMs Global legal conflicts that slip through deal diligence “The new owner inherits the terms, but not always the spirit or operational assumptions.” “Developers might just spin up virtual machines and companies might not even know what they are doing.” “What happens when there’s a conflict with local laws? Sometimes vendors get caught in a gray zone.” #CIO #CTO #ITLeadership #SoftwareLicensing #MergersAndAcquisitions #ShadowIT #DigitalRisk #VMware Full article: https://lnkd.in/gUEUTSVE If you’ve ever navigated licensing during carveouts, acquisitions, or shadow IT cleanup… you know how easily this can escalate. What’s your playbook when vendor terms shift midstream?

Who can stop the mighty Broadcom? They've cracked the code: Acquire. Squeeze. Scale. And VMware is the masterpiece. After refining the model through acquisitions like CA Technologies and Symantec, Broadcom perfected it with VMware: • Strip out complexity • Kill legacy SKUs • Enforce bundling and longer terms • Raise prices—significantly • Prioritize large, committed customers The result? Massive revenue acceleration—but rising frustration across the ecosystem. Cloud providers, resellers, and enterprise customers are now navigating licensing chaos and cost spikes. CISPE to the rescue? A coalition of European cloud providers, CISPE, has filed a legal challenge to the EU’s approval of the VMware acquisition. They claim Broadcom is abusing its now dominant position and systematically squeezing smaller players out of the market. And CISPE isn’t just making noise, they’ve successfully pushed Microsoft to revise cloud licensing terms in Europe. Now they’re taking on Broadcom. And the European General Court has the power to annul merger approvals if legal or competitive harm is found. Here’s what CISPE is alleging: • Contracts terminated – VMware abruptly dropped many small cloud providers from its partner program • Locked out – Cloud licensing is now invite-only, favoring only the largest global partners • Prices skyrocketed – Increases of 2x to 10x, plus long-term commitments that punish smaller providers with unpredictable demand • No way to compete – For small providers built on VMware, the new model makes survival nearly impossible Even if the court doesn’t intervene, the pressure is building. It’s about time someone stood up to this kind of vendor behavior.

My latest in today's print edition of The Wall Street Journal: Chief information officers say they are concerned about vendors shifting sales strategies in favor of bigger, pricier software bundles thanks to an uptick in business technology acquisitions. VMware became one of the latest companies to do so following its recent acquisition by Broadcom. The provider of foundational “virtualization” software went from more than 160 individual products to two primary bundled offerings. Broadcom’s VMware Cloud Foundation division said the new bundles will provide better value since they have more features. But in some cases like this, CIOs said they now have to pay higher prices despite not actually wanting all those features.  “I don’t need all those things because I now end up with products that are overlapping Venn diagrams and very hard to manage,” said Todd Florence, CIO of Richmond, Va.-based trucker Estes Express Lines. Chad Simpson, CIO of Florida-based home furnishings retailer CITY Furniture said he’s seeing a similar phenomenon with Salesforce. “They purchase many smaller companies to extend their core capabilities, which ultimately drives up their pricing model over time,” he said. He said he wishes software vendors would offer more flexible, modular, menu-style offerings, similar to the way cloud is sold and priced. “They want to sell you essentially the full menu and you want to hope that you’re going to use the full menu of offerings, but the reality is that most companies can’t and won’t.” Read the full story here: https://lnkd.in/e-qVzA4w #tech #cio #ai #SaaS

🚨 𝗩𝗠𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗘𝘅𝗼𝗱𝘂𝘀 𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗛𝗼𝗿𝗶𝘇𝗼𝗻 – 𝗦𝗵𝗼𝘂𝗹𝗱 𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗟𝗼𝗼𝗸 𝗘𝗹𝘀𝗲𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲? Broadcom’s recent VMware acquisition has left many customers frustrated. Here’s why they’re rethinking their options. 🔍𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗗𝗘𝗘𝗣 𝗗𝗜𝗩𝗘 ⭕ License Cost Spike: Over half of VMware customers surveyed (51.9%) are reconsidering their provider, citing high costs and eliminated popular licenses post-acquisition. ⭕ Open Source Alternatives Rising: Nearly 45% of users are now exploring open-source options, prioritizing flexibility and fair pricing over traditional vendor models. ⭕ Vendor Lock-In Backlash: Lock-in concerns are pushing organizations to seek providers offering transparent pricing, support, and better SLAs, as 23.2% of respondents hesitate over limited open-source support. 🤔 𝗪𝗛𝗬 𝗜𝗧 𝗠𝗔𝗧𝗧𝗘𝗥𝗦 For FinOps professionals, escalating costs with no service enhancements spell trouble. The choice to pivot from proprietary systems to open-source can offer predictability, but without support, the risks may offset the savings. 🚀 𝗬𝗢𝗨𝗥 𝗡𝗘𝗫𝗧 𝗦𝗧𝗘𝗣𝗦 Evaluate cost, support, and flexibility when selecting a cloud provider. Read further with this link: https://vist.ly/3mke8tx #costoptimization #opensource #FinOps #cloudcomputing