Half of VMware users plan to reduce usage by 2028

Analyst says many others wouldn’t mind doing the same, but feel stuck
Half of VMware users plan to reduce their use of the virtualization pioneer’s products by 2028, according to a survey by independent analyst firm Virtified.

Virtified principal Michael Warrilow, a former Gartner analyst specializing in cloud and virtualization, told The Register VMware users are uncomfortable with Broadcom’s strategy of only selling a complete private cloud bundle – Cloud Foundation 9 (VCF 9).

Some users feel the cost of VCF 9 is beyond their means, Warrilow said.

Others don’t want all the tools in Cloud Foundation, or the complexity of operating them.

Users with those issues will therefore assess their virtual machine fleet and move some to another platform.

The analyst said many migrations are already under way, but believes not all will result in smaller Broadcom bills.

Warrilow told The Register he’s heard that when Broadcom gets a whiff of customers downsizing their VMware estates, it offers less generous discounts – or no discount at all.

Bills may also stay high because migrating away from VMware before the October 2027 end-of-support date for its version 8.x products will be hard to achieve.

Warrilow expects many users will therefore find themselves needing to reluctantly acquire VCF 9 to stay compliant.

Others will wait it out past that date, to align a move to a different virtualization platform with a hardware refresh.

Those who choose to continue with unsupported software will likely face a license audit that, if it shows a user will need more entitlements, sees Broadcom offer software at list price or minimal discount.

“Broadcom is hoping this all goes in the too hard basket and you do the upgrade,” he said.

Warrilow said those who don’t plan to reduce their VMware estate may have reached that decision due to various factors that prevent an easy or economical migration.

He said lack of suitable VMware alternatives, an inability to move to the cloud, and low risk appetite are among the reasons that some users decide to stay put.

He also thinks those who stick with VMware may well enjoy the experience.

“There is the chance to get greater density and lower license costs,” he said.

“And it is possible the engineering of the product will get better.

There’s a lot less bickering in the Broadcom era, and potential for a more unified product.”
“But right now VCF 9 includes stuff that people didn’t want unified.”
Nutanix last week launched an “Agentic AI solution” it says tweaks its AHV hypervisor, Kubernetes distribution, Enterprise AI platform, and Flow software-defined networking to provide a platform on which to build and run AI agents.

Also last week, Oracle announced it now supports Broadcom’s bring-your-own-license scheme for the Oracle Cloud VMware solution.

Doing so means Oracle now rents VMware users bare-metal servers, and customers buy licenses direct from Broadcom.

Lastly, Singaporean hyperconverged infrastructure vendor Arcfra has released an upgrade to its Enterprise Cloud Platform that it claims improves storage performance to 11 Million+ IOPS in 4K random reads, and 30+ GiB/s in sequential read.

The company claims those speeds make it an enterprise contender and a better VMware alternative.

Warrilow’s findings are drawn from a survey he conducted – using the same market research company he used while at Gartner – that surveyed 450 VMware users across 14 countries.

Respondents came from the ranks of operations, infrastructure, architecture, and procurement teams, at companies with over 500 employees.

The analyst has also prepared documents he calls “Loops,” that assess the main VMware alternatives.

Like other analysts of The Register ’s acquaintance, he rates VMware as the market leader, but feels Nutanix, Microsoft, and Red Hat are closing the gap.

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