When Broadcom completed its acquisition of VMware in late 2023, it made a calculated bet: that enterprise customers were too deeply embedded in VMware’s ecosystem to leave, regardless of what happened to pricing. For many large enterprises with complex NSX and vSAN investments, that bet appears to be proving correct, at least in the short term. For small and medium-sized businesses, the outcome has been considerably more disruptive.
If your business runs VMware and your renewal is approaching, this post explains what has changed, what it is likely to cost you, and what your realistic options are.
What Broadcom Actually Changed
The key changes were announced by VMware in January 2024 and represent the most fundamental shift in VMware’s licensing model in two decades.
- Perpetual licences have been eliminated entirely. As of January 2024, no new perpetual VMware licences are available. All purchases are now subscription-based on one, three, or five-year terms
- The product catalogue has been consolidated from over 160 products into two main bundles: VMware Cloud Foundation and vSphere Foundation. Standalone products including vSAN, NSX, and the Aria Suite are no longer sold individually
- Pricing has shifted from per-socket to per-core, with minimum purchase requirements. For businesses running dense modern processors, this change alone increases costs substantially regardless of how much compute is actually used
- vSphere Essentials Plus — the product designed specifically for small businesses — has been discontinued and replaced by higher-tier subscription offerings
- The VMware partner ecosystem has been significantly reduced. Broadcom cut a large number of partners from the programme, reducing the availability of competitive support options and certified engineers
What It Is Costing Businesses
The financial impact on smaller organisations has been significant. Customers and analysts across the industry have reported cost increases ranging from meaningful double-digit percentage rises to several multiples of previous annual spend, depending heavily on specific configuration and which products were previously in use.
Businesses that were running vSphere Essentials Plus — the entry-level product for organisations with a small number of hosts — have faced some of the most pronounced increases, because their previous product has been discontinued with no direct equivalent in the new pricing structure. The closest available options carry substantially higher minimum costs.
Many large enterprises appear to be staying with VMware in the short term — not because they are satisfied with the pricing, but because the migration costs, retraining requirements, and risk of moving large virtualised environments make alternatives difficult to justify quickly. The calculus for smaller businesses with simpler environments is different.
1. Consumer Perception and Trust
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2. User Experience (UX) and Navigation
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The Impact of Skincare Business Consulting Services
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