They're not the only ones pissed off with VMWare [1].
What I don't understand is what prevents them to shop around for alternatives. What is VMWare's very good moat that prevents the competition from invading their castle?
Never thought I'd be able to say this, but Broadcom has out-CA'd Computer Associates.
For those not familiar with CA, their model was to buy up failed enterprise software companies and milk the s@*t out of the licensing and support contracts, while spending next-to-nothing on development. Broadcom follows much the same model with steroids and protein powder.
CA failed, only after years of profitable rent-seeking. The same may happen to Broadcom, but it will take years. In the meantime the companies who depend on the software they control will pay a heavy price.
Making on premise hosting more costly changes the calculus making cloud migrations easier to sell to the board. Broadcom's revenue is literally a slice of hyperscaler capex and that capex is enormous. Combined AI infrastructure spending across the major players runs well past $600 billion annually. This aligns with the federal government's need to have data custody and supports whatever the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) is called now. They are geniuses.
12 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 27.2 ms ] threadhttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48576838
What I don't understand is what prevents them to shop around for alternatives. What is VMWare's very good moat that prevents the competition from invading their castle?
https://www.theregister.com/software/2026/03/24/half-of-vmwa...
For those not familiar with CA, their model was to buy up failed enterprise software companies and milk the s@*t out of the licensing and support contracts, while spending next-to-nothing on development. Broadcom follows much the same model with steroids and protein powder.
CA failed, only after years of profitable rent-seeking. The same may happen to Broadcom, but it will take years. In the meantime the companies who depend on the software they control will pay a heavy price.
The current report and discussion this week:
Tesco moving 40k server workloads off VMware amid Broadcom's abusive conduct
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48576838
The behaviour was acquired too ....