Nine in 10 VMware customer looking to switch vendors due to increased licensing costs
- License costs are a worry for 90% of VMware customers
- Multi-vendor and security complexities are limiting migration for many
- Some customers are staying with VMware but sourcing their own support
A new study has claimed a staggering 90% of decision-makers are considering VMware alternatives purely based on licensing costs.
But following other changes made to the virtualization stack under its not-so-new Broadcom ownership, two in three (66%) of those surveyed by Rimini Street are also considering third-party support.
That said, there’s a big step between considering leaving VMware and actually migrating away, and many face the reality of not being able to without incurring high costs or encountering technical difficulties.
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VMware customers aren’t happy, but they’re not switching away
Broadcom’s licensing changes are the biggest offender, the study shows, with 90% of those considering an alternative impacted by higher licensing costs and 54% unhappy with the end of support for perpetual licenses.
Despite very clear dissatisfaction, half (48%) of existing perpetual licence customers don’t actually have any plans to move away from VMware Cloud Foundation.
Still, the wheels are in motion with three in five surveyed businesses considering multi-hypervisor strategies, potentially as the first stage in a multi-step process to move away from VMware. The journey ahead isn’t so simple, though, with operational complexity (40%), managing multiple vendors (38%), handling security with an expanded attack surface (37%) and ups killing workers (37%) all cited as challenges.
“The shift for current VMware users is not simply about replacing one vendor with another. It reflects a broader effort by enterprises to reduce dependency on a single provider,” Unisphere lead analyst Joe McKendrick explained.
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What we’re seeing more of, though, is the adoption of third-party support for existing VMware packages instead of total migrations away from the company. One in five (18%) are already using third-party support.
“For many organizations, that means balancing support for existing environments with new investments designed to improve resilience, security and scalability over time,” McKendrick added.

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License costs are a worry for 90% of VMware customers Multi-vendor and security complexities are limiting migration for many Some customers are staying with VMware but sourcing their own support A new study has claimed a staggering 90% of decision-makers are considering VMware alternatives purely based on licensing costs. But…
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