VMware, under Broadcom, continues to face significant customer attrition driven by increased licensing and subscription costs. Organizations are actively seeking alternatives, exploring options like Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization and hyperconverged infrastructure for more predictable pricing and specialized workloads. This shift is accelerating migration plans away from VMware's ecosystem as customers prioritize cost-effectiveness and simpler solutions.
VMware's efforts to retain customers, such as its 'win-back initiative,' have reportedly been met with skepticism, further impacting trust. Despite these challenges, the company is pursuing strategic collaborations, including with AMD, to integrate AI capabilities. This dual approach highlights ongoing operational adjustments and a broader industry trend towards diversifying IT infrastructure.
The operational reality for some IT professionals involves managing complex hybrid environments with limited resources, underscoring the demand for simplified and reliable technologies. While VMware explores new integrations and partnerships, the market continues to respond to the pricing and model changes, with a sustained focus on open-source and cost-predictable alternatives for enterprise IT.
Last updated September 13, 2026
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Sysadmins are reporting that September 2026 cumulative updates (KB5122871 and KB5122882) are causing RDS session hosts to hang, with RDP connections stalling and logoffs failing, requiring hard resets and prompting investigation into rollback or Microsoft acknowledgment.
9 Sep 2026
A junior IT professional, now the sole IT resource at a small company after their senior colleague left, is overwhelmed with responsibilities ranging from helpdesk to ERP and infrastructure management, while being underpaid and lacking adequate training for hybrid AD, Azure, and backup systems.
31 Aug 2026
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14 Aug 2026
The VMware-Broadcom situation serves as a cautionary tale, emphasizing the critical need to avoid over-reliance on single platforms by continuously assessing workload placement, costs, and associated risks.
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A critical access hospital IT team is seeking a simple and stable replacement for Tera2/PCoIP zero clients, facing management overhead and bugs with various thin client solutions and exploring Windows kiosk mode with Imprivata OneSign.
29 Jul 2026
A sysadmin is shocked by a quote of $520,000 for three densely configured servers intended for a hypervisor migration away from VMware, but ultimately secures approval for the purchase after justifying the cost and necessity.
27 Jul 2026
After 16 years as a sysadmin, the poster recounts the stressful experience of accidentally rolling back the primary production server by over a year during a vendor upgrade, resulting in a 3.5-hour outage with minimal data loss.
27 Jul 2026
Foxconn has replaced VMware with a hyperconverged upstart, Arcfra, to handle demanding workloads including artificial intelligence.
23 Jul 2026
A sysadmin is evaluating virtualization platforms, considering Nutanix's HCI (though not compatible with their servers) and Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization as alternatives to VMware, which they find unreliable due to recent changes and slow relicensing responses, noting OpenShift's potential cost savings and suitability for their on-premise needs despite the complexity of air-gapped environments.
21 Jul 2026
A former VMware customer expresses disbelief and offense at Broadcom's 'win-back initiative' offering aggressive pricing, viewing it as an insult to their intelligence after experiencing significant price hikes and negative changes since the acquisition.
17 Jun 2026
Tesco is rapidly attempting to transition away from VMware and Broadcom despite the inherent risks associated with such swift migrations.
4 May 2026
According to Gartner Vice President Analyst Alessandro Galimberti, migrating to an IBM mainframe could be more cost-effective for VMware users than adopting Broadcom's new licensing, despite potential risks associated with vendor lock-in and skill challenges.
5 Apr 2026
A former system admin recounts a seven-year-old story of alleged corporate sabotage and antitrust violations involving Dell EMC, Datrium, and VMware, urging former customers to speak out.
30 Dec 2025
After letting a support contract lapse on perpetual licenses, an IT department faced aggressive scare tactics from VMware/Broadcom representatives demanding immediate renewal or threatening license deactivation, ultimately forcing a reluctant, discounted one-year subscription purchase while planning an infrastructure migration.
10 Dec 2025
An IT professional observes with dismay that major configuration management tools like Salt, Puppet, and Chef have transitioned under corporate ownership (Broadcom, Perforce, AI firms), leading to concerns over future licensing demands, prompting a search for viable, enduringly free alternatives like Ansible or Capistrano.
5 Dec 2025
The open source virtualization platform Proxmox has released the first stable version of its Datacenter Manager, positioning the product as a more robust and viable alternative for building software-defined private cloud environments compared to established proprietary solutions.
3 Dec 2025
HPE is promoting its Morpheus stack enhancements within GreenLake to position it as a comprehensive alternative to VMware, unifying Aruba and Juniper networking for AIOps and high-speed AI connectivity.
24 Nov 2025
The author vents frustration after management ignored explicit warnings about impending VMware licensing cost hikes following the Broadcom acquisition, only to balk at the resulting massive renewal quote.