VMware Explore 2025 is fast approaching (Aug. 25-28 in Las Vegas), and there are lots of things that customers would like to see from Broadcom – lower prices, less restrictive licensing options, and extended support for customers whose contracts have expired, for example. But, to paraphrase Mick Jagger, “you can’t always get you want, but you just might find you get what you need.”
In other words, despite grumbling by customers, as well as legal action against Broadcom on a number of fronts, there’s no indication that Broadcom CEO Hock Tan is wavering the least bit from his strategy. Broadcom is resolute in its mission to transition customers from perpetual licenses to subscriptions and to require that customers pay for a full-blown private cloud platform, even if that translates into significant price increases.
The days of customers being able to cherry pick items from a VMware a la carte menu are over; welcome to the nine-course tasting menu.
The strategy seems to be working. Broadcom reported revenue of $15 billion for the second quarter of its 2025 fiscal year, up 20% year over year. Net income was up 124% year over year to $4.95 billion. And Tan said during a recent earnings call that 87% of VMware’s top 10,000 customers have signed up for the VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) bundle.
Broadcom’s pitch is that VCF enables IT organizations to run a modern, virtualized, high-performance, highly automated, AWS-style cloud in an on-prem environment with all of the benefits that accrue. All customers need to do is take advantage of VCF’s full arsenal of features.
And that’s the sole focus of VMware Explore 2025.
“This year’s VMware Explore theme, ‘Simplify Your Cloud. Architect Your Future,’ speaks to where we see customers going,” said Broadcom in a statement to Network World. “Customers are struggling with cloud complexity, AI adoption, and security demands – all at once. VMware Explore 2025 aims to provide them with the tools and strategies to address that complexity to streamline the entire cloud lifecycle – from development to consumption to management.”
The session catalog is crammed with hands-on labs, workshops, breakout sessions, tutorials, roundtables and keynotes all focused on VCF. There are even sessions with Broadcom execs entitled, “Ask me anything about VCF 9.0.”
Tan’s keynote address –“Shaping the Future of Private Cloud and AI Innovation” – will include VMware experts who will unveil the latest innovations in private cloud, private AI and app delivery. The session will also showcase customers sharing real-world insights on how to better run, scale and secure their enterprise workloads, according to Broadcom.
Broadcom’s relationship with some customers has turned contentious
It’s not often that an enterprise IT vendor gets into public spats with its customers, but Broadcom seems to have no problem playing hardball.
Broadcom recently sent cease-and-desist letters to some VMware perpetual license holders whose support contracts have expired, according to a report in Ars Technica. The letters state that users suspected of unauthorized use of patches, bug fixes, and updates released after the expiration of the support agreement may be subject to review.
Last fall, Broadcom settled a very public dispute with AT&T after the VMware customer sued, claiming that VMware was refusing to honor a prior contract to extend support services. AT&T said its VMware costs were set to spike by $1,050%. AT&T said at the time that “Broadcom is attempting to bully AT&T into paying a king’s ransom for subscriptions AT&T does not want or need, or risk widespread network outages that could cripple the operations of millions of AT&T customers worldwide.”
Around the same time, Siemens threatened to sue VMware if it didn’t provide ongoing support for its software and handed over a list of the software it was using for which it wanted support. However, that list included software that Siemens didn’t have any licenses for, perpetual or otherwise. VMware sued, Siemens countersued, and the companies’ legal battle continues.
That’s not all.
This summer, the Cloud Infrastructure Service Providers in Europe (CISPE) filed an action for annulment in a bid to overturn the decision by the European Commission approving Broadcom’s acquisition of VMware.
VOICE, a German association of IT users, has filed a complaint with the EU Commission against Broadcom/VMware for infringements of competition law. According to the user association, Broadcom is abusing its dominant market position in the field of virtualization software. Specifically, VOICE accuses Broadcom of “imposing exorbitant and unfair price increases with the help of arbitrarily compiled product bundles as part of the switch from perpetual licensing to subscription.” VOICE reports price increases of several hundred percent.
And a Dutch court recently ordered Broadcom to continue providing VMware support to the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management (Rijkswaterstaat) for up to two years during the agency’s migration to alternative platforms. The District Court of The Hague found that Broadcom’s refusal to provide transition support constituted a breach of “duty of care.” The court noted that the agency uses VMware to manage critical infrastructure. Failure to comply results in hefty penalties.
Despite all of these legal flaps, Broadcom shows no signs of backing down. While there have been some defections, there are indications that most enterprise customers appear to be moving through the five stages of grief and arriving at acceptance.
Finding the value in VCF
Brad Tompkins, executive director of the 150,000 strong VMware User Group (VMUG), points out that Broadcom announced that it was buying VMware in May 2022, so VMware customers have had three years to absorb the ramifications.
VMUG members did their due diligence and investigated alternatives, Tompkins says, and most came to the conclusion that VSphere is tough to beat and decided to stick with VMware and go all-in with VCF. At this point, the conversation among VMUG members has shifted from resistance to: “Now I have all this extra technology. I need to figure out how to use it, how to provide value,” he says.
Tompkins adds that getting full value out of VCF requires that organizations align technology, people and processes. The “people and process” part is probably the more difficult, while the technology part of the equation might be the easiest, according to Tompkins.
Broadcom unveils VCF 9.0
There are few things that will make this year’s Explore conference different from others, Tompkins adds.
Vendors often unveil a new product at their annual user conference, but Broadcom announced general availability of VCF 9.0 on June 17. “This is their first real release under Broadcom’s direction,” he says.
The release of VCF 9.0 shows that Tan was true to his word when he promised to invest in R&D and innovation. “It shows the vision of Hock Tan and Broadcom, which is that we want everyone marching toward VCF,” says Tompkins.
Secondly, since the product has been out for two months, Tompkins says he is looking forward to hearing from customers who may have at least kicked the tires on VCF 9.0.
And, finally, VMware typically conducted a second Explore event every year in Barcelona, but that has been discontinued, so Tompkins says he expects attendance at the Las Vegas event to be buoyed by European attendees.
Steve McDowell, principal analyst at Nand Research, says: “The general availability of VCF 9.0 marks a significant step in Broadcom’s post-acquisition strategy to consolidate and modernize VMware’s role in private and hybrid cloud infrastructure. Rather than introducing incremental enhancements, this release is a deliberate repositioning of VCF as a central platform for enterprises seeking control, governance, and performance across on-premises and distributed environments.”
“VCF 9.0 brings significant strategic implications for enterprise IT organizations navigating hybrid cloud architectures, AI workload integration, and increasing demands for cost control and data sovereignty,” McDowell says.
Here are some key components of VCF 9.0, according to McDowell:
- The platform consolidates infrastructure operations and developer workflows into a single control plane, reducing tool sprawl and cross-domain complexity.
- By delivering a public-cloud-like consumption model, VCF 9.0 enables enterprises to adopt self-service infrastructure provisioning, chargeback models, and API-driven automation.
- VCF 9.0 supports AI and machine learning workloads through the integration of GPU services, confidential computing, and Kubernetes-native tools.
- Integrated security dashboards, compliance scanning, and confidential computing support help IT organizations improve audit readiness and reduce regulatory and cybersecurity risks.
- Real-time cost metering, predictive modeling, and automated capacity reclamation enable better alignment between infrastructure usage and business budgets.
- There are also improvements such as advanced memory tiering, which can reduces total memory and server costs by up to 38%, according to Broadcom; vSAN global deduplication, which can reduce TCO by up to 34%, according to Broadcom; and NSX Enhanced Data Path, which increases east-west data throughput for AI pipelines and service meshes.
The VCF 9.0 bottom line
VCF provides an operating model for private cloud deployments, but it’s not an all-or-nothing proposition. Organizations can adopt as many components as they find useful. Tompkins says that if an organization adopts even 70% of VCF they will gain significant benefits in areas of cost savings, people savings and the ability to automate processes with tools that come with the bundle.
“Everybody wants to operate like AWS,” says Tompkins. “The hyperscalers do it at scale with a lot less resources than the typical enterprise. Think of VCF as a cloud operating model that you can purchase and deploy. There are going to be savings that will help offset buying the whole package.”
And Tompkins says VMUG will be there long after the Explore 2025 event is over to help its members to get the most out of VCF 9.0.
Source:: Network World