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Contents8
  1. Consumer-impact summary
  2. Background
  3. Incidents
  4. Licensing change since the Broadcom acquisition
  5. Products
  6. Alternatives
  7. See also
  8. References
VMware
Basic information
Founded 1998
Legal Structure Subsidiary
Industry Cloud, Information Technology, Virtualization
Also known as
Official website https://www.vmware.com

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]

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]

Scan of a Broadcom Notice of Expiration of Support letter sent to a VMware perpetual-license customer.
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 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]
    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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