Still a lot of work to do, but well on the way to becoming the world's best IT infrastructure provider: This is how Hock Tan, CEO of Broadcom, summarizes VMware's first 100 days under the new owner. At the same time, he acknowledged that the steps had caused “some displeasure” among customers and partners.
Advertisement
The connection is of course obvious: Immediately after the takeover, Broadcom announced that it would only sell VMware products for companies in two subscription packages. At first it remained unclear which products this would mean the end of – but an official overview is now available. In addition, Broadcom immediately cut the partner program.
If you have no choice, you have no pain
Nevertheless, Tan is convinced that VMware customers would be able to access new developments from the provider more quickly in the future and that Broadcom would thus better address their IT needs. Furthermore, the new model is industry standard anyway and is also more profitable for the partners. With VCF, license costs have fallen by half compared to previous subscription offers.
Tan wants to underline how much the restructuring is in the interests of customers through his discussions with CIOs, CTOs and partners during the preparation of the takeover. These showed him that IT that was too complex would slow down organizations, that a simplified infrastructure would boost business and that IT security and available software developers were of the utmost importance.
VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) aims to provide exactly that. However, what Tan does not address in his recap is that customers are not criticizing VMware's new direction for the existence of such a subscription package, but for the compulsion to do so. Not all users need the included products – and would generally prefer to have a choice about which software they can license and how.
More money for innovations
For the future, Tan holds out the prospect of new innovations for which one billion US dollars would be available. However, he does not provide any details about which VMware developments the investments should benefit from and how.
(fo)