Broadcom says recent changes to VMware’s portfolio and licensing model will benefit customers. More integration, collaboration and a more targeted update policy are central. Broadcom even talks about savings.

Broadcom says it is doing its due diligence to simplify the portfolio of recently acquired VMware. Permanent licenses were abolished in favor of a subscription model, 59 products disappeared as individual solutions and 1,800 employees were given access. This led to some turbulence, as Dell, among others, no longer saw any benefit from its strategic relationship with VMware. In a blog post, Marketing Vice President Prashanth Shenoy wants to defend the plans as a customer-friendly restructuring.

Easier and cheaper

Shenoy said Broadcom is simplifying VMware’s unnecessarily complex structure, innovating and standardizing the ecosystem. No one will dispute that VMware didn’t have a simple portfolio. The simplification is intended to make it more attractive for customers to work with VMware. He further emphasizes that a subscription model is the standard in the industry.

Interestingly, the head of marketing also speaks of lower prices. Broadcom bundles (some of) the missing individual products into an umbrella offering, such as the VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF). VCF now offers more for its money, it seems. Broadcom, customers and partners benefit from this simplification, and the money gained goes toward research and development, according to Shenoy.

Bluntly

Broadcom isn’t wrong, but it’s cut so many corners that most of the considerations are off the road. For large customers buying VCF, the restructuring is actually not a bad thing. They use the full VCF offering almost completely and see a high price-performance ratio.

However, for less large customers, Broadcom has bundled useful solutions with irrelevant services. Do you just want the vSphere hypervisor or vSAN for storage? Bad luck: you can only purchase the entire VCF package with NSX, Aria and any other components you don’t need, including the accompanying price tag.

Cheaper or more expensive?

Shenoy says Broadcom is breaking down product silos. For example, updates to VCF will be coordinated and there will be more license portability. However, it’s clear to read between the lines that all of these changes were made with very large customers in mind. A large number of VMware users are left out in the cold. There are no savings for them.

This view is shared by Gartner analysts. Gartner Vice President Andrew Lerner tells SiliconAngle that feedback from most customers has not been positive and that their costs for VMware have at least doubled since the acquisition. Given this tenor, Shenoy’s discourse rings somewhat hollow. “It will only get better,” he concludes. It seems doubtful whether this applies to all current customers.

Are you a VMware customer and do you have visibility into future changes to your license costs? Do you pay less, as Broadcom states, or does the bill double? Let us know via press@itdaily.be. All information, feedback and tips will be treated confidentially without express permission.