I have been contacting my VAR since September last year. I was requesting a quote for the renewal of my Vmware license. After MONTHS of not getting a reply from Broadcom, they finally gave us a quote. Despite the dates that were in the “Expiration” Broadcom decides to rescind the quote and issue us another quote. This time the quote was over 200% over the initial quote that was provided by the VAR. Obviously, we questioned the validity of this overly priced quote. Despite numerous attempts to contact Broadcom for a meeting, they ignored and literally said “the quote is the quote”. Needless to say, I was appalled by this reply.
In this case, I have no idea why a company that acquired another company that has not done hardly anything to the product all decides to suddenly increase the RENEWAL cost. I can accept a 10% increase but not a 200% increase. How is this possible?
NEXT, I decided to just purchase half of my licenses and retire the other old ESX servers completely. So, would you think that the returned quote be 1/2 of the 200% cost? No, Broadcom decided to tack on a $13K “fee”. Needless to say, I was speechless. They are just robbing us just to rob us.
PLEASE let me know what your recent experience is with renewing VMWare licenses.
Thank you in advance
14 Spice ups
Rod-IT
(Rod-IT)
2
This has come up many times before and your story is no different.
The short answer is, they likely don’t want your business.
You also need to license a minimum of 72 cores now, regardless of how many you have, unless it’s more, then you license those too.
VMware support expiration - Vendors - Spiceworks Community
8 Spice ups
Phil7965
(Phil7965)
3
Might want to look into ProxMox if your host OS is anything other than Windows. If it is Windows, then welcome to the world of Hyper V 
12 Spice ups
Might want to look into ProxMox if your host OS is anything other than Windows. If it is Windows, then welcome to the world of Hyper V
Most people I’ve talked to are going Hyper V. Aside from the training gap from VMWare to Proxmox, I have recently been told by an MSP friend that Proxmox has some limitations I was unaware of. I run Proxmox in my homelab and love it, but most just play around with linux distros on it for funzies.
2 Spice ups
This is yet another example of why consolidation and acquisitions are never good news for customers. Any time I see an announcement like this I know it’s time to go shopping. Though I will say that Broadcom seems esp. egregious with regard to their handling of VMware.
7 Spice ups
phildrew
(phildrew)
6
I got an email from Broadcom’s “compliance team” on Friday telling me that we had not renewed or subscribed for a VMware license, and we were being served with formal notice that our support access was thusly being cut-off.
From THEIR portal, I can see two current and active subscriptions, both purchased within the last 6 months…
Broadcom’s causing of customer confusion and frustration with their inability to provide timely or accurate quotes is nothing new, and by now, unfortunately, really should just be the expectation - unless your subscription happens to be worth several million dollars - they’ll talk and deal to you then. Until then, you’re solely subject to their mercy/mercilessness.
3 Spice ups
scottpoore
(Nerfed Herder)
7
Yep. We too are in the middle of a Hyper-V conversion. They are actively ejecting customers for some reasons.
1 Spice up
Our experience with Broadcom is such that we are actively planning a way off. Have a 1000+ VMs, so it will be an effort.
2 Spice ups
c-t
(C-T)
9
Same boat. Our renewal was right at the beginning of all of this and we didn’t have enough time to switch all of our infrastructure in a few months so we sucked up the huge raise in cost to buy us time and are now looking at other options. I think our renewal was 3x or 4x the cost. Pucker factor was 8x or 10x if we were gonna get the expense approved
1 Spice up
egp_dave
(egp_dave)
10
Hopefully your attorney can send them a strongly worded reply.
1 Spice up
We don’t use vmware for more than a half a dozen VMs, so for us the renewal cost was pretty darn close to what it was 3 years ago…however…it took past the EOL to get the agreement in place, and now that it’s in place, I cannot download the software to go to version 8 because my broadcom support login is no longer connected to my employer, and NO ONE will respond to me when I try to get the 2 connected…so…what to do? I have no idea. But we paid for it and can’t really take advantage of it.
I have experience with Broadcom with Symantec EPP and with Backup Exec and let me tell you, not looking forward to this experience going forward. They have to have the worlds worst support.
phildrew
(phildrew)
12
Nothing that exciting, fortunately.
I literally sent them a two line email that’s nearly exactly what I posted - I see two active subscriptions in my account in YOUR portal, explain your statement about support being suspended.
Got an answer back within about 15 minutes that the previous account manager didn’t associate the purchase to our account, or something similar (don’t know how it appears in my account, and they can’t see it, not interested in finding out). I didn’t bother to finish reading the email when their reason came down to competence. Easier to just accept it and move on to things that matter.
2 Spice ups
Dan5623
(Dan5623)
13
It’s almost as if Broadcom is now run by this guy.
2 Spice ups
kwelch007
(kwelch007)
14
Broadcom has publicly stated that it is not interested in the SMB market. They made some minor overtures, but are clearly just trying to price/frustrate them out of that market. Not stating an opinion, but if that’s what they want for the business I suppose it’s up to them.
Our two largest resellers were unwilling or unable to get us a direct quote. We went to the local reseller who is a lot smaller and were able to get a quote right away. The pricing went up a lot, but at least we know what the ballpark is if we try to renew. Unless they change the rules again before we go to renew.
Rod-IT
(Rod-IT)
16
robhall
(robhall)
17
Our renewal cost went up 300%. Of course, by that time, we had migrated everything from VMWare to Proxmox… still got a Cease & Desist Letter a month ago, however.
I have nothing new to add re: the Broadcom problem - it is what it is. My support contract expires next year, and I’ll be migrating my small vSphere implementation to another hypervisor technology.
I was paying a very low annual price for vSphere Essentials, now discontinued, and was looking to renew with vSphere Standard and accept a 4,220% increase. But Broadcom have now also discontinued vSphere Standard in the Asia/Pacific region, meaning my only VMware option is to move to vSphere Foundation or Enterprise Plus at a 17,900% increase. Yes, those numbers are correct. Unfortunate, because VMware has been a sound technology for my SMB for many years.
