Author: Robert Cannings
Managing Consultant

Following Broadcom’s acquisition of VMware in November 2023, it was subsequently announced that it would be ending the sale and support of perpetual licenses with immediate effect. However, a potential EU Anti-Trust case against the company might delay these drastic changes imposed by Broadcom.

What does this EU Anti-Trust case mean?

While this shift towards subscription licenses has been common across most software vendors in recent years, the changes to the VMWare portfolio have been viewed as particularly aggressive; encompassing large price increases, a heavily streamlined license portfolio, and not maintaining security conditions for perpetual licenses.

However, in the wake of a potential EU anti-trust case bought about on the 28th March by a number of EU business leaders asking the European Commission to step in for “a delay in the drastic changes unilaterally imposed by Broadcom”, VMware appears to have somewhat softened their stance in some areas.

How does this affect you?

On the 15th April, Broadcom CEO, Hock Tan announced in a blog post that they had given support extensions to many customers that had made that investment into perpetual licenses and were not yet ready to transition to the new subscription model and portfolio.

Furthermore, they would also be providing “free access to zero-day security patches for supported versions of vSphere” with this rolled out to “other VMware products over time”.

The cynics among us might see this blog post from the Broadcom CEO as a move to ward off the anti-trust case, but either way, it’s a positive development for those of you that have already made signficant investments into perpetual VMware licenses and don’t yet feel ready to make the jump into the new subscription offerings.

If you need any assistance understanding what this might mean for you, reach out to us at Livingstone where we have decades of experience in this field to support you.