Research suggests more than half of VMware customers are looking to move

Research published by Civo indicates that more than half of VMware customers are considering leaving the platform under Broadcom's ownership.

The VMware rival has an ax to grind here. CEO Mark Boost told El Reg earlier this year that Broadcom's strategy appeared to consist of ditching smaller accounts via price hikes while relying on the whales to keep the cash rolling in.

During an interview at Civo's Navigate shindig in Berlin, Boost questioned whether Broadcom could be regretting its decisions. "There's no one I've spoken to that is happy about the changes," he said. "The changes benefit [Broadcom], no matter how Broadcom spins it."

And naturally, Civo – alongside many other alternatives – is more than happy to offer an avenue of escape to former VMware loyalists left reeling by the changes implemented following the acquisition of the company by Broadcom.

During the VMware Explore conference, attendees spoke of tripling prices and concerns over the transition from perpetual licenses to the potentially bigger bills of compulsory subscriptions.

Boost also discussed the financial distress the changes were causing for smaller companies that had built businesses on VMware. "Overnight, their prices have quadrupled or whatever, and they've got a choice: do they pass it on to their customers, or do they try and soak it up? They probably can't afford to soak it up, so they pass it on. It's a real mess. I think it's a shame that it's profits over anything else nowadays."

According to the research, 48.7 percent of customers are considering a change of cloud provider, and 44.9 percent are looking into migrating to open source solutions. However, 28.6 percent are worried about open source security, and 23.2 percent voiced concern about security and service level agreements (SLA).

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Henry Godwin, VP of Global Sales at Civo, wrote in the research: "We've heard from a lot of concerned VMware customers over the previous nine months. Ultimately, businesses want certainty. They cannot continue in a situation where prices are skyrocketing without any parallel improvement in service."

Many rival cloud providers and vendors would be delighted to take on customers tired of being on the sharp, pointy end of Broadcom's changes. Companies including Nutanix have enjoyed a surge of interest at the expense of VMware.

Simon Hansford, formerly CEO at UKCloud and now working with Civo, told The Register that VMware's customer base could be roughly divided into thirds, those that Broadcom hoped would simply regard the hikes as a cost of doing business, a third that hoped they were small enough that VMware's new leadership wouldn't come after them, and a third that Hansford said were "just jumping ship."

The new research indicates that significantly more than a third might be leaping off the VMware platform before long, which is not good news for Broadcom, no matter how rosy the financials might look right now.

The Register contacted Broadcom for comment, but the company has yet to respond. ®