Three ways VMware customers can buy time and extend value
With steep increases in licensing fees, here are three ways to avoid the harsh effects of Broadcom's changes while protecting VMware your investments.
Published on 6th February 2025
As the IT landscape continually evolves, CIOs and IT decision makers face an increasingly complex array of challenges. The most pressing involve decisions concerning when to adopt new technologies. For example, consider the decisions VMware customers are now being forced to make after its recent acquisition by Broadcom.
Many organizations with perpetual VMware licenses are facing significant annual fee increases demanded by VMware. In fact, according to Device42, “some VMware customers are experiencing cost increases of as much as 1,200%.” VMware products that were once available for license purchase are now only being offered as part of subscription bundles, leading to steep price hikes over multi-year terms.
Why get locked into a costly contract when you have alternatives? Start by keeping these three considerations in mind as you build out your VMware roadmap strategy.
1. Weigh your virtualization options
VMware’s shift in licensing strategy has left many organizations in a state of uncertainty, and potentially locked into multi-year terms. Perpetual licensees that have made substantial investments in their existing VMware infrastructure now find themselves under pressure to either accept the new terms or explore alternative solutions.
This situation creates an immediate need for adequate time to make optimal decisions, and explore all options, including VMware alternatives such as commercial and open-source hypervisors and virtualization solutions, public and private clouds, and container platforms.
With renewals fast approaching, enterprises lack the time necessary to evaluate and shift to alternative virtualization environments (this includes hypervisors, management systems and myriad ancillary tools for things like high availability and virtual machine backup to name a few). For many, these are business-critical systems, and exploring self-support options is too risky. Therefore, the focus must shift toward strategies that allow organizations to “buy time” and find certainty during uncertain times.
2. Plan for long-term success
The concept of buying time is not merely about delaying decisions but also about creating a buffer to thoroughly analyze all available options without feeling forced to make a quick move
The rapid pace of technological change often means vendors roll out innovations faster than IT leaders can assess or implement them. You need to evaluate virtualization solutions not just for your current needs but also for their capability to support cloud computing, artificial intelligence (AI), internet of things (IoT), and future emerging tech. Buying time can help enable you to better mitigate and minimize risks while planning for long-term success.
3. Engage a trusted IT advisor and partner
As a VMware customer you do have options—you can diversify through different virtualization providers, or you can lift and shift all your workloads over to another provider or cloud. By engaging with a trusted advisor and objective partner in the industry, they can help identify your best path forward, aligning technology strategy with your business objectives.
You’ve likely made significant investments in your current VMware infrastructure, and they can share advice and counsel on how to both continue leveraging your mature and proven VMware infrastructure platform and get the premium, mission-critical quality support and services you need at a price point you can afford.
Turning challenges into opportunities
While the uncertainty introduced by VMware’s licensing changes may feel daunting, it’s actually a great opportunity for organizations to take control of their VMware strategy. By engaging a trusted IT advisor and partner, organizations gain time and empower IT leaders to make strategic, informed decisions that align with their long-term goals.
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Abdulloh Fauzan via Vecteezy
