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VMware

Revision as of 04:45, 15 June 2026 by Louis (talk | contribs) (rewrote the stub into a full company page. added company history, the perpetual-license to subscription changes, the at&t/tesco/dutch lawsuits, and what happened to free esxi and workstation/fusion. dropped the reddit cite and the incorrect "esxi is based on red hat" line, added a couple primary-source screenshots)
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VMware is an enterprise virtualization software company that has been a subsidiary of Broadcom since November 2023.[1] After the takeover, Broadcom stopped selling perpetual licenses, moved existing customers onto subscriptions, & began sending cease-and-desist letters demanding that perpetual-license holders without active support contracts stop installing patches & updates.[2][3] Customers reported annual cost increases of 800% to 1,500%, with AT&T alleging a 1,050% rise, & the changes drew lawsuits in the United States, the United Kingdom, & the Netherlands.[4][5][6][7][8]

VMware
Basic information
Founded 1998
Legal Structure Subsidiary
Industry Cloud, Information Technology, Virtualization
Also known as
Official website https://www.vmware.com

Consumer-impact summary

  • End of perpetual licenses. On December 11, 2023, Broadcom stopped selling perpetual VMware licenses & discontinued support renewals for existing ones, collapsing the lineup into a few subscription bundles.[2] Software bought outright can't be updated unless the owner discards the perpetual license they paid for & buys a subscription.
  • Price increases. AT&T alleged Broadcom offered it a 1,050% price rise.[5] For many customers, reported cost increases ranged from 800% to 1,500%.[4]
  • Cease-and-desist letters and audits. Beginning in 2025, Broadcom sent legal notices ordering perpetual-license holders without active support to remove any patches, bug fixes, or upgrades installed after their support expired, then followed with software audits.[3]
  • Litigation. AT&T sued in August 2024 & settled in November 2024;[6] Tesco sued for £100 million in September 2025;[7] a Dutch court ordered Broadcom to keep supporting the national infrastructure agency Rijkswaterstaat after an 85% price hike;[8] and VMware sued Siemens in March 2025 for using unlicensed copies.[9]

Background

VMware was founded in 1998 in Palo Alto, California, and shipped its first product, VMware Workstation, in 1999, bringing x86 virtualization to the desktop.[10] EMC Corporation announced its acquisition of VMware, a cash deal valued at about $635 million, in December 2003.[11] Dell Technologies later gained control of VMware & spun it back out as an independent company on November 1, 2021, divesting its 81% equity stake.[12] Broadcom announced its acquisition of VMware in May 2022 in a deal valued at about $61 billion & completed the purchase on November 22, 2023.[13][1]

Incidents

This is a list of consumer-protection incidents this company is involved in. Any not listed here can be found in the VMware category.

Licensing change since the Broadcom acquisition

Main article: VMware licensing change since acquisition by Broadcom

Broadcom ended perpetual VMware licensing, required customers to move to subscriptions, & enforced the change through the software's license terms, sending cease-and-desist letters to perpetual-license holders who kept patching unsupported software.[3] The licensing changes also drew antitrust scrutiny, including a monopoly investigation by Japan's Fair Trade Commission.[14]

 
A Broadcom notice of expiration of support sent to a VMware perpetual-license customer demands that the customer stop using updates and patches issued after its support contract expired.[3][15]

Products

  • VMware vSphere and its ESXi hypervisor are the core server-virtualization platform. Broadcom discontinued the free edition of ESXi in February 2024, then restored it in April 2025.[16][17]
  • VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) is the bundled subscription stack Broadcom steers customers toward after collapsing the former product lineup into a handful of bundles in December 2023.[2]
  • VMware Workstation Pro and VMware Fusion are desktop hypervisors for Windows, Linux, and macOS. Broadcom made both free for personal, educational, & commercial use on November 11, 2024.[18]
  • VMware Horizon & the rest of the End-User Computing line are no longer VMware products. Broadcom sold the division to the investment firm KKR, and it now operates as a standalone company, Omnissa.[19]
  •  
    VMware's own blog post announcing that Workstation Pro and Fusion became free for personal, educational, and commercial use on November 11, 2024.[18]
  •  
    VMware's blog post introducing Omnissa, the former VMware End-User Computing business sold to KKR.[19]

Alternatives

Customers leaving VMware have moved to both open-source & commercial platforms. Proxmox VE is an open-source server virtualization platform from Proxmox Server Solutions GmbH, with optional paid support subscriptions.[20] QEMU is a free, open-source machine emulator and virtualizer.[21] On the commercial side, analysts have called Nutanix the most direct challenger to VMware in hyperconverged infrastructure.[22]

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 "Broadcom Completes Acquisition of VMware". Broadcom Inc. 2023-11-22. Archived from the original on 2025-12-17. Retrieved 2026-06-15.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 "VMware by Broadcom Dramatically Simplifies Offer Lineup and Licensing Model". VMware News. 2023-12-11. Archived from the original on 2024-05-14. Retrieved 2026-06-15.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Harding, Scharon (2025-05-07). "VMware perpetual license holders receive cease-and-desist letters from Broadcom". Ars Technica. Archived from the original on 2025-10-13. Retrieved 2026-06-15.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 "Broadcom has allegedly hiked VMware costs between 800 and 1,500%". TechRadar. 2025-05-23. Archived from the original on 2025-09-15. Retrieved 2026-06-15.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Sharwood, Simon (2024-10-01). "AT&T claims VMware offered it a 1,050 percent price rise". The Register. Archived from the original on 2025-11-28. Retrieved 2026-06-15.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 "Broadcom, AT&T reach settlement in VMware legal dispute". CIO Dive. 2024-11-22. Archived from the original on 2025-08-14. Retrieved 2026-06-15.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 "Supermarket giant Tesco sues VMware for breach of contract". The Register. 2025-09-03. Archived from the original on 2025-12-23. Retrieved 2026-06-15.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 "Dutch court forces Broadcom to support VMware migration after 85% price hike backlash". Network World. 2025-06-30. Archived from the original on 2025-09-11. Retrieved 2026-06-15.
  9. ↑ "VMware sues Siemens for using unlicensed software". The Register. 2025-03-26. Archived from the original on 2025-11-28. Retrieved 2026-06-15.
  10. ↑ "Everything you need to know about VMware". IT Pro. Archived from the original on 2026-02-15. Retrieved 2026-06-15.
  11. ↑ "EMC to Acquire VMware, Inc. (Form 425)". U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. 2003-12-15. Retrieved 2026-06-15.
  12. ↑ "Dell Technologies Announces Completion of VMware Spin-off". PR Newswire. 2021-11-01. Archived from the original on 2026-05-07. Retrieved 2026-06-15.
  13. ↑ "Broadcom to Acquire VMware for $61 Billion". CNET. 2022-05-26. Retrieved 2026-06-15.
  14. ↑ "VMware investigated by Japanese antimonopoly agency: reports". The Register. 2024-09-25. Archived from the original on 2025-11-25. Retrieved 2026-06-15.
  15. ↑ "Notice of Expiration of Support by Broadcom". 2025-04-16. Archived from the original on 2025-05-13. Retrieved 2026-06-15.
  16. ↑ Sharwood, Simon (2024-02-13). "Broadcom terminates VMware's free ESXi hypervisor". The Register. Archived from the original on 2026-03-13. Retrieved 2026-06-15.
  17. ↑ Sharwood, Simon (2025-04-14). "VMware revives its free ESXi hypervisor in an utterly obscure way". The Register. Archived from the original on 2026-04-26. Retrieved 2026-06-15.
  18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 "VMware Fusion and Workstation are Now Free for All Users". VMware Cloud Foundation Blog. 2024-11-11. Archived from the original on 2026-05-02. Retrieved 2026-06-15.
  19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 "Introducing Omnissa, the former VMware End-User Computing business". VMware End-User Computing Blog. April 2024. Archived from the original on 2026-02-08. Retrieved 2026-06-15.
  20. ↑ "Company". Proxmox Server Solutions GmbH. Archived from the original on 2026-05-29. Retrieved 2026-06-15.
  21. ↑ "QEMU". QEMU. Archived from the original on 2026-06-09. Retrieved 2026-06-15.
  22. ↑ "VMware by Broadcom changes to continue in 2025". TechTarget. 2025-01-14. Retrieved 2026-06-15.
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