Broadcom stopped selling VMware perpetual licenses in November 2023 in favor of pushing a small number of VMware SKUs that feature multiple VMware offerings. Since Broadcom is forcefully bundling VMware products, the costs associated with running VMware have skyrocketed, with customers frequently citing 300 percent price hikes and some firms claiming even larger increases. As a result, some VMware users have opted to keep using VMware perpetual licenses, even though Broadcom refuses to renew most of those clients’ support services.
This year, Broadcom started sending such VMware users cease-and-desist letters [PDF], telling organizations to stop using any maintenance releases/updates, minor releases, major releases/upgrades extensions, enhancements, patches, bug fixes, or security patches (except for zero-day security patches) that VMware issued since the user’s support contract ended.
The letters also warned of potential audits, which appear to be underway now.
Oh wow… Broadcom looked at Oracle and thought “We too should behave like shit and antagonize our customers!”
Lol, no surprises there. VMware was really never much different though.
I don’t think its a perpetual license if the company is allowed to cease and desist you for continuing to use the contract after the support window ended.
“You can pay us or you can pay lawyers”
VMWare is aggressively pursuing it’s customers at a time when there are many companies offering alternatives to their products. Whether that’s Linux based KVM solutions, or Microsoft W365 / Hyper-V, or Citrix or Oracle or numerous others.
Broadcom essentially overpaid for VMWare and it’s stuck trying to play the constant profitability game of over valued tech stocks. Treating customers like criminals isn’t going to end well for VMWare but will be a boon to all the other virtualization companies.
