VMware by Broadcom will soon launch a new training experience that will offer “more training at a fraction of the cost they used to pay.”

The new offering was discovered after Broadcom were asked to verify information presented at a recent VMware User Group Town Hall event at which attendees were told the virtualization giant had withdrawn its on-demand training.

VMware by Broadcom confirmed training material has indeed been withdrawn for some customers.

“On February 5 we made our entire digital content library, including the On Demand courseware, available free of charge to all VMware Cloud Foundation customers, all customers in our strategic customer segment, and all Broadcom Advantage program partners.”

That VMware by Broadcom has ensured the above mentioned groups retain access to on-demand training material speaks volumes about its strategy. The “strategic segment” comprises the customers that Broadcom has chosen to work with directly, typically very large users. VMware Cloud Foundation is the hybrid cloud bundle Broadcom has made its lead product. While the bundle includes many products, the combo means it is more expensive than the point products that VMware customers may have opted to acquire

Free training might make the price of Cloud Foundation a little more tolerable.

Broadcom Advantage is the vendor’s partner program, and as the channel needs skills to represent a software house, it’s no surprise partners have retained access to VMware training material.

The rest of the VMware community, however, will have to wait until around May to see the company’s next training offering.

It may be announced earlier though.

“We are prepping to announce some very positive and major changes to our Digital Learning offerings and we expect the platform to be fully up, and the new digital learning offerings to be made public, at the beginning of Broadcom’s Q3FY24 (May).”

The positives include the previously mentioned “more training at a fraction of the cost they used to pay”.

Any reduction in the cost of running VMware products will likely be very welcome, as many tales have been heard of Broadcom’s new bundles-or-nothing licensing policy resulting in significant cost increases. Broadcom argues that using all the products in its bundles offers the best chance to derive value from VMware products. VMware users push back by saying they don’t want to use everything in the bundles, or won’t be able to for many months or years even as they are effectively forced to pay for shelfware.

Broadcom seems unfussed by such feedback: last week its CEO Hock Tan told investors his strategy is succeeding and will be reflected in revenue growing by double-digit percentage sequentially, quarter over quarter, through the rest of the fiscal year.