VMware & Broadcom: (Almost) Two Years Later

What changed, what’s available now, and what it means for you.

Quick Summary

• Broadcom’s $69 billion acquisition of VMware has transformed how products are sold and supported.
• Perpetual licences have been retired, with all customers moved to subscription-based pricing.
• VMware’s wide product portfolio has been cut down to just two core bundles, vSphere Foundation (VVF) and VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF).
• Enterprise Plus was reintroduced after backlash, but only as subscription and without access to vSphere 9.
• Perpetual licence holders without active support are facing strict enforcement, including legal letters.
• Alternatives exist, such as HPE VME with Morpheus, Microsoft Hyper-V and Red Hat KVM.

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What happened after Broadcom took over VMware?

Broadcom completed its acquisition of VMware on 22 November 2023, in a deal worth $69 billion. The transaction immediately raised concerns about VMware’s future direction, and those concerns have only grown since.

Step back to Jan 2024, VMware announced the end of support for perpetual licences – much to the disquiet of many loyal VMWare users. Since that time, all new customers were moved to subscription licensing. This was a huge shift for long-standing VMware users, many of whom had invested heavily in perpetual models and built their environments around them.

Broadcom also simplified VMware’s product line. What used to be a broad selection of editions was reduced to just two bundles: VMware vSphere Foundation (VVF) and VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF).

From Broadcom’s side, the intention was “business simplification” and from a new customer point of view, simplified options are easy ways to choose – but for many customers – it meant losing flexibility and choice.

The backlash was strong. Many customers who had Enterprise Plus chose to downgrade to Standard rather than migrate to Foundation bundles. Broadcom responded by bringing back Enterprise Plus, but only as subscription. To make matters more confusing, Enterprise Plus customers do not get access to vSphere 9 features. Those remain tied exclusively to the Foundation bundles.

Sounds confusing? Check out our comparison of the current lineup and downloadable PDF further down the page.

What exactly is Omnissa?

Another major change was the creation of a separate company called Omnissa. VMware’s End-User Computing (EUC) business, which includes Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI), was spun out into this new organisation.

That means VMware’s desktop and endpoint virtualisation products no longer sit alongside the core compute and hypervisor stack. Omnissa now manages those products independently.

For the purposes of this article, we’re focusing only on vSphere and the hypervisor platform, not EUC or VDI.

How do the new licence costs work?

The removal of perpetual licences brought a new subscription model, and with it a shift in how customers pay. The current cost model is based on cores, not CPUs. In a nutshell:

• Licensing is now per-core (no longer per-CPU)
• One licence per core, with a minimum of 16 cores per physical CPU 

If you have a processor with fewer than 16 cores, you still need to license it as though it has 16.

The bottom line is that licensing is now simplified but potentially more expensive. Customers are strongly advised to stay close to their VMware partner, because the rules can shift without much notice. One quarter may bring “blue skies”, the next may feel like “stormy seas”.

Speak to your Trustco account manager or get in touch with us today for advice or more information on VMware licensing.

What versions of VMware now exist?

Customers new to VMware no longer have access to the older editions such as Essentials, Standard or Enterprise Plus as standalone perpetual licences. Anything up to vSphere 8 has effectively been frozen in time – you can still use it if you have it – but new customers are being pushed to subscription.

Instead, Broadcom’s new range consists of:

• vSphere Foundation (VVF) – the “core” vSphere bundle, including vSphere and management tools. vSAN capacity can be licensed per core and pooled, with add-ons for expansion.
• VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) – the full software-defined data centre stack, bundling vSphere, vSAN, NSX and SDDC Manager. This is positioned as Broadcom’s flagship offering.

While vSphere 9 exists as a selection of new features, it is only available inside these bundles. It cannot be purchased separately. Meanwhile, those on Standard and Enterprise Plus can access features only up to vSphere 8, Update 3.

👉 Download the comparison PDF provided by VMware to compare and contrast the current offerings.

Perpetual is perpetual, until it’s not! 

Perpetual licences are technically perpetual, in the sense that you can still use your VMware product – but Broadcom’s approach has cast doubt over their long-term value.

Customers with perpetual licences and expired support contracts have been denied access to updates and patches, effectively putting a roadblock in place and rendering your license useless. Reports emerged in 2025 of Broadcom sending cease-and-desist letters instructing customers to stop using updates installed after support expired.

This aggressive enforcement has been widely covered in industry press and has raised serious concerns among customers. Frankly, VMware are late to the party when it comes to subscription pricing – Adobe switched in 2011 – but telling perpetual customers to effectively stop using what they already paid for feels to many like moving the goalposts.

There is some good news. If you hold perpetual licences with active support (SnS), you remain entitled to updates and patches during that support term. The clampdown is targeting lapsed support contracts, not active ones. How long will Broadcom allow these ongoing support contracts to last? We couldn’t say.

What are the options if you’re running older versions of VMware?

Your options depend on which version you are running and whether you have active support in place.

If you’re on vSphere 7.x:

This version has been given an End of Service Life (EOSL) date of 2 October 2025. After this date, there will be no further support or updates. Customers still under support can upgrade to vSphere 8 using vSphere Lifecycle Manager.

If you hold a perpetual licence with active support, you can keep that support going for as long as Broadcom permits. But if you want to move beyond v8, the path will eventually lead to subscription Foundation bundles.

If you’re on vSphere 8.x:

No official end-of-life date has been published. Based on VMware’s historic five-year lifecycle, some industry analysts predict late 2027 – which seems a fair conclusion – but this has not been confirmed by Broadcom. For now, vSphere 8 remains supported, secure and stable as long as hardware and software are compatible.

If you want vSphere 9 features:

These are only available in Foundation bundles (VVF or VCF). Even with an active support contract on vSphere 8, you cannot upgrade to v9 without moving to subscription.

What are the alternatives to VMware?

vSphere is (in our minds) the best hypervisor there is out there. However, not everyone can keep up with the complexity and pricing right now so we’re often being asked – what else can we do? 

HPE VME and Morpheus

HPE’s Virtual Machine Environment (VME) comes bundled with the Morpheus cloud management platform. This combination offers multi-hypervisor orchestration, self-service provisioning and lifecycle automation through a single interface. Morpheus is designed to work not only with HPE and VMware, but also with Red Hat KVM and other platforms, making it a flexible hybrid-cloud solution.

Microsoft Hyper-V

Hyper-V is integrated into Windows Server and widely used across Microsoft Azure environments. For organisations already invested in Microsoft, it provides an enterprise-grade hypervisor without the added licensing cost of VMware. With Windows Admin Centre or System Center VMM, Hyper-V supports clustering, live migration and other advanced enterprise features.

Red Hat / KVM

Red Hat offers a robust virtualisation solution built on the open-source KVM hypervisor. It is particularly strong for organisations moving toward containerised workloads and Kubernetes. With Red Hat Virtualisation Manager (RHV-M), customers gain central lifecycle management, role-based reporting and streamlined configuration. Morpheus can also be used alongside Red Hat for orchestration.

Should I realistically think about moving from VMware?

That is a tough question to give a yes or no answer to. VMware is a technological staple and has become so ubiquitous that it’s easy to forget how powerful and reliable it is. That said, there are other options on the market, and Broadcom’s sometimes cut-throat way of doing business may have put a stain on the VMware brand that will be hard to remove.

As with many questions in life, the answer is complicated. Speak to your VMware partner about the options that are available and whether they match your requirements. Don’t have a VMware partner? Then speak to Trustco today – we would be happy to help.