VMware resell partners in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) will see the lowest tier in VMware’s partner program removed in May 2026 as the Broadcom Advantage Partner Program gets rolled out globally.

“The Registered tier will go away in May in EMEA,” said Laura Falko, Broadcom’s global partner program leader.

“So those [EMEA Registered] partners will either exit or they will be re-levelled to the Select tier level,” said Falko, head of global partner marketing and Broadcom’s partner program office.

Broadcom is reducing its four-tier Broadcom Advantage Partner Program for VMware resellers—Registered, Select, Premier and Pinnacle—into three tiers in EMEA this May, eliminating its lowest Registered partner tier completely.

More than two years after Broadcom took over VMware, the virtualisation company’s customers are still grappling with higher prices, uncertainty, and the challenges of reducing vendor lock-in.

CloudBolt Software have released a report, “The Mass Exodus That Never Was: The Squeeze Is Just Beginning” that provides insight into those struggles. CloudBolt is a hybrid cloud management platform provider that aims to identify VMware customers’ pain points so it can sell them relevant solutions. In the report, CloudBolt said it surveyed 302 IT decision-makers (director-level or higher) at North American companies with at least 1,000 employees in January. The survey is far from comprehensive, but it offers a look at the obstacles these users face.

Broadcom closed its VMware acquisition in November 2023, and last month, 88 percent of survey respondents still described the change as “disruptive.” Per the survey, the most cited drivers of disruption were price increases (named by 89 percent of respondents), followed by uncertainty about Broadcom’s plans (85 percent), support quality concerns (78 percent), Broadcom shifting VMware from perpetual licenses to subscriptions (72 percent), changes to VMware’s partner program (68 percent), and the forced bundling of products (65 percent).

When Broadcom bought VMware, some customers shared horror stories about receiving quotes that showed prices increasing by as much as 1,000 percent. CloudBolt’s survey paints a more modest picture. Fourteen percent of respondents said their VMware costs have at least doubled, while 12 percent reported increases of 50–99 percent, 33 percent reported increases of 24–49 percent, and 31 percent reported increases of less than 25 percent.

Despite survey participants suggesting smaller price hikes than originally anticipated under Broadcom, companies are still struggling with the pricing changes. Eighty-five percent are concerned that VMware will become even more expensive, according to CloudBolt’s survey.

VMware appears to have won an early procedural victory in its lawsuit against Siemens. The judge ruled in favour of VMware’s position that the US court has jurisdiction, despite Siemens’s request to move the case to Germany.

The case began in March 2025, when VMware discovered that Siemens’s US branch had provided a list of software that included many more products than had been licensed. VMware sued Siemens because, according to VMware, the industrial group refused to cooperate with a license audit and demanded that VMware provide extended product support for potentially unlicensed software.

Siemens referred to contracts that, according to the company, stipulate that disputes must be heard in German courts. VMware, on the other hand, argued that the alleged use of unlicensed software occurred in the US, giving US courts proper jurisdiction.

On Tuesday, Judge D. Hatcher of the Delaware District Court indicated her support for VMware’s argument. She published a Report and Recommendation stating that Siemens’s attempt to move the case to Germany should be rejected.

Such reports indicate the logic and precedents that are likely to influence a future decision. Both parties have 14 days to file objections, but those submissions are limited to ten pages. This restriction is intended to force those involved in the lawsuit to focus on the issues in the report rather than exploring new arguments.

The lawsuit against Siemens is not an isolated incident. Broadcom has intensified its VMware license audits since the acquisition. The company moved away from perpetual licenses and is forcing customers to switch to expensive subscription bundles. This has led to tensions with several large organisations.

For VMware, the case against Siemens appears to be proceeding in the desired court for now. The virtualisation giant can now continue to litigate in the US over the alleged use of unlicensed software. Whether Siemens will still object to the judge’s recommendation will become clear in the next two weeks.

Broadcom has once again made sweeping changes to the VMware partner ecosystem. This time, it is mainly European cloud service providers that are feeling the impact. Many parties that provide VMware services through the VMware Cloud Service Provider (VSCP) program are losing their partner status. This means that they can fulfil their existing contracts, but are no longer allowed to enter into renewals or new long-term commitments. Moreover, the time to complete ongoing deals is limited.

According to The Register, this affects hundreds of cloud providers across Europe. For customers, this could result in a forced reorientation of their supplier, with potentially significant consequences for existing environments, contracts, and long-term plans.

The move is part of a broader course correction that Broadcom had already initiated after the acquisition of VMware. At the beginning of 2024, existing reseller and solution provider programs were terminated and replaced by a model in which partners can only participate in the Broadcom Advantage Partner Program by invitation. At the same time, Broadcom radically changed its licensing model, with new bundles and modified terms for customers with perpetual licenses.

The US General Services Administration is flogging discounts of up to 64 percent under a OneGov Agreement covering Broadcom’s VMware portfolio – though the actual hypervisor that made VMware famous isn’t included.

The framework covers VMware Tanzu Platform, Tanzu Data Intelligence, Avi Load Balancer, vDefend, and the Tanzu AI Starter Kit. Notably absent: VMware vSphere Foundation, the virtualisation platform most agencies actually use.

“This agreement represents another major milestone under the OneGov initiative and advances President Trump’s call to accelerate AI adoption across government,” said Josh Gruenbaum, Federal Acquisition Service Commissioner.

Broadcom framed the deal as helping agencies extract more value from existing investments in its private cloud platform while “achieving zero trust through multi-layer defense-in-depth.”

Those existing investments are considerable. The US Army and other agencies signed a reportedly $477 million blanket purchase agreement for VMware licenses in 2024, while the Navy inked a $173 million deal. Last year, the Defense Information Systems Agency signed a contract pegged at nearly $1 billion, delivered via Carahsoft.

The discounts secured by the GSA expire in May 2027, giving Federal tech teams limited time to decide whether to hitch their container, security, or AI strategies to Broadcom’s wagon.

That might not be a decision to rush.

Broadcom’s acquisition of VMware continues generating some customer fallout, with license and product changes prompting customers large and small to reconsider their commitment to the platform.

These include UK supermarket giant Tesco, which sued Broadcom and one of Europe’s largest resellers Computacenter “for not honouring a contract that gave the supermarket giant the option to acquire software at pre-determined prices and ongoing software support services.”

Computacenter in turn filed a claim against Broadcom and Dell, arguing that the companies – software supplier and distributor respectively – had not fulfilled their contractual obligations to the reseller.

Other upset customers included AT&T, Siemens, and the Dutch Government.

None of that has deflected Broadcom from its strategy of disruption and focusing on the biggest customers. Just last month it yanked its VMware vSphere Foundation bundle in parts of EMEA, a decision that could particularly hurt smaller customers.