Ninety percent of organizations running VMware are exploring alternative virtualization strategies, primarily driven by licensing cost increases, according to a survey of 300 organizations worldwide conducted by Rimini Street through Unisphere Research.
Since Broadcom completed its $61 billion acquisition of VMware, customers have reported cost increases ranging from 100 to 300 percent, with some citing hikes exceeding 1,000 percent. Seventy-three percent of survey respondents prioritize cost savings in their virtualization roadmap decisions.
Fifty-four percent cited Broadcom's decision to end support for perpetual license holders as a direct catalyst for exploring alternatives. The economics are stark: for many mid-market and enterprise customers, the shift from perpetual to subscription licensing has flipped the total cost of ownership calculation.
Operational complexity remains the biggest barrier to migration. Forty percent of respondents named it as the most significant obstacle, followed by multi-vendor management challenges at 38 percent. Expanded attack surface and team skill gaps tied at 37 percent.
The acquisition has exposed a fundamental risk in enterprise infrastructure: over-reliance on a single vendor's pricing power. Tony Harvey, senior director analyst at Gartner, previously characterized the VMware deal as a "wake-up call" that is prompting clients to pursue "more diversity in their on-premises environments."
In response, 60 percent of surveyed organizations are planning multi-hypervisor strategies. Forty-seven percent favor a hybrid IT virtualization environment combining hypervisors and containers, seeking workload-specific placement rather than platform lock-in.
Broadcom's Cloud Foundation platform, its hybrid cloud answer to customer churn, has not swayed the market. Forty-eight percent of respondents are not planning to migrate any assets to it, signaling persistent skepticism about another single-vendor consolidation play.
The exit strategy is clear: enterprises are moving toward heterogeneous, multi-platform environments. This represents a structural shift in how large organizations now architect virtualization—not around a vendor's platform ambitions but around their own operational flexibility and cost containment.
