Ever since VMware was acquired by Broadcom, their customers have been dealing with unwanted price-hikes and business model shakeups.
Now Broadcom is closing VMware’s Advantage Partner Programme, replacing it with an invite-only model. But this time, only the biggest of the biggest businesses are invited. Previous partner contracts aren’t being renewed. Remaining customers are being cut off entirely.
If you’re a VMware partner and haven’t got an email inviting you to the new VCF programme, then you’re being cut off.
These changes specifically affect enterprises and service providers using VMware to run business-critical applications and deliver cloud services to clients. The latest changes don’t just affect pricing and subscription models, they determine whether you’ll even have access to VMware at all.
New owners, new rules
In 2023, multinational tech conglomerate Broadcom acquired VMware for $69 billion. For most VMware customers, this wasn’t a good thing.
When Broadcom first bought VMware they introduced the ‘Advantage Partner Program for Cloud Service Providers’. That’s gone. They’ve replaced it with the highly consolidated VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF), a programme which is available only via invitation. If you’re a VMware partner and haven’t got an email inviting you to the new VCF programme, then you’re being cut off.
Over in Europe, the trade association CISPE described the changes in blunt terms:
"Both cloud providers and their customers are being irreparably damaged by Broadcom's unfair actions, which we believe are illegal. After imposing outrageous and unjustified price hikes immediately following the acquisition of VMware, Broadcom is now applying the ‘coup de grâce’.”
You’ve been abandoned
A VMware partnership is no longer an option, but your clients need continuity. You need a plan that will get you through this serious disruption.
Broadcom isn’t offering a real solution. In an email sent to rejected partners shared by The Register, Broadcom advised: "Non-renewing partners are encouraged to engage with retained VCSP partners to ensure a smooth transition for customers."
They’re forcing you off the platform.
Broadcom expects you to go from being a partner to being a customer’s customer. They’re trying to keep earning money from you without having to actually deal with you. For you, that’s a major downgrade. It’s more middleman expenses, and another company charging you premium subscription model pricing for the service.
Broadcom is relying on your resistance to change platforms, and will keep milking you as much as possible as long as you’re with them. Even if you tried working with one of the selected few VMware partners, there’s no guarantee that the rug wouldn’t once again be pulled up from underneath you.
If you’re looking to leave VMware behind, and improve what you can offer to customers, it might be time to come and talk with us about what your next few months could look like.
We understand the scale of what you’re facing
Broadcom’s now got a lot of understandably angry former-customers who’ve had their operations upended and left providerless.
If that’s the camp you’re in, the silver lining is that now could be the right time to consider modern alternatives. Sure, changing off VMware won’t be as easy as flicking a switch. But stranded VMware customers now have the opportunity to adopt an entirely new platform with improved functionality and much more stable pricing and licensing structures. It could be time to reconsider costs, license agreements, and take a long-term view.
A friendly way out
If VMware’s changes leave you in a tough spot, we get it.
If you’re looking to leave VMware behind, and improve what you can offer to customers, it might be time to come and talk with us about what your next few months could look like.
SiteHost is New Zealand-owned and operated, and we’ve been hosting websites for over 22 years. We don’t have Big Tech conglomerate owners breathing down our neck, pushing anti-consumer practices into our services.
We’re running open-source virtualisation technology that’s not beholden to ever-changing licensing agreements. We're set up with standard enterprise-level KVM virtualisation, meaning your Linux or Windows workloads will feel right at home. Speaking of right at home, we run our own data centre here in Auckland. We also have a local team of expert engineers on the clock 24/7/365, and are ready to help you when you need it.
Enter the Private Cloud
VMware has been the biggest virtualisation platform on the market for a long time, but times are changing and there are more reliable alternatives.
One such alternative here at SiteHost is our Private Cloud service. If you’ve been using VMware to securely divide a physical server’s resources amongst your clients, then this is a very plausible replacement.
Private Cloud lets you choose your dedicated resources, and gives you the freedom to spin up and manage VPS or Cloud Container servers however you’d like. Cloud Containers are our most popular and easiest hosting platform, and require less maintenance than a VPS. It’s easy to run different frameworks and versions in the same space by spinning up multiple Cloud Containers on the same server.
There’s lots of space to spin up virtual servers as you see fit on your Private Cloud, all on dedicated hardware that’s isolated and yours alone.
As part of our Server Management (which every Private Cloud comes with), we make sure every installation is maintained, patched and updated by our expert team. When we’re not busy maintaining your servers, our team is at work building extra layers of protection and security into our services.
Virtualisation, without the gatekeeping
Switching to open-source tech eliminates any future risks or fears of license price inflation. You’d be shielded from Broadcom’s 200% to 500% price spikes. Instead you're paying for actual dedicated resources and real support (not whatever features Broadcom bundles into their newest programme to justify increased prices). You don’t have to worry about any surprise licensing restructures or having your services cut off.
Switching your VMs to a universally compatible open-source enterprise-grade platform could be the last VM stack change you’ll ever have to make. And if for some reason you end up wanting to migrate workloads between cloud providers in the future, there wouldn’t be any lock-in or technical blockers.
Changing virtualisation platforms is a big decision. If you want to serve the same scale as a VMware partner without the ongoing threat of your life support being pulled, give us a call.