Rimini Street published its "2026 IT Virtualization Survey" today, reporting 90 percent of VMware users are exploring alternative virtualization strategies following significant cost increases imposed by Broadcom since acquiring VMware.
Customers report VMware costs climbing by as much as 1,000 percent, with many experiencing price hikes between 100 and 300 percent. The survey examined 300 organizations globally and found cost savings is a top priority for 73 percent of participants in virtualization roadmap decisions.
54 percent of respondents cited Broadcom's decision to end support for perpetual license holders as a reason to explore alternatives. Rimini Street, a third-party support provider for VMware, Oracle and SAP, commissioned Unisphere Research to conduct the survey.
The shift carries real friction. Operational complexity deterred 40 percent of respondents, while 38 percent flagged multi-vendor management challenges. Security concerns and team skill gaps each worried 37 percent.
60 percent of surveyed organizations are now considering a multi-hypervisor strategy—a direct hedge against vendor lock-in. 47 percent favor a hybrid environment combining hypervisors and containers to optimize workload placement across technologies.
Customer reluctance to deepen cloud commitments is equally telling: 48 percent do not plan to move any assets to VMware's Cloud Foundation platform. This suggests Broadcom's pricing squeeze is also poisoning the well for its broader hybrid cloud ambitions.
Tony Harvey, senior director analyst at Gartner, previously called Broadcom's acquisition a "wake-up call" for clients who had become "dependent on a single vendor" and now seek "more diversity in their on-premises environments."
The trend points to a structural shift in how enterprises architect virtualization. Organizations are abandoning monolithic vendor relationships in favor of bespoke, multi-platform environments—a costly migration now, but an insurance policy against another aggressive pricing action.
