VMware Explore: Partners Hope for the Best with Broadcom Acquisition

VMWARE EXPLORE — VMware partners acknowledge a lack of information, but are cautiously optimistic with Broadcom pursuing its $61 billion acquisition of the company.

The partners commented during this week’s VMware Explore, previously VMworld, in San Francisco. The conference brought more than 10,0000 attendees from around the globe.

On Tuesday, VMware CEO Raghu Raghuram said the Broadcom acquisition represents his company’s “next major transition.” He also said both companies are in the discovery phase of the acquisition process.

Andrew Calabrese is World Wide Technology‘s global partner manager for VMware.

WWT’s Andrew Calabrese

“Obviously there’s a lot that VMware probably doesn’t have answers to and also can’t talk about,” he said. “And really the one main thing that they have been open about … is this transition to SaaS and subscription models will really be accelerated with Broadcom acquiring VMware. I think VMware was going down that path anyway. But I think with this acquisition, whenever it does take place in the next year, will really accelerate that even more than VMware probably would have done on their own.”

Calabrese added: “Obviously there will be challenges in terms of how we go to market as well for our customers, but inevitably it is the way of the future so we’ll be there to change with it and still want be a top partner with VMWare.”

‘Weird Environment’ Right Now

Debra Korol is ClearBridge Technology Group‘s senior business development manager.

ClearBridge’s Debra Korol

“It’s a weird environment right now,” she said. “There are a lot of changes, but nobody knows what the changes are going to be, even though some things are communicated and some things are not. So I think right now VMware is … doing the best that they can given the information that they have, at least from a delivery standpoint.”

Steve Prather is CEO of Dizzion, VMware’s largest desktop-as-a-service partner globally. He said he doesn’t know what to think yet of the Broadcom acquisition.

Dizzion’s Steve Prather

“There’s a lot to learn, I think lots of opportunity,” he said. “There are some risks that I can potentially see, so I’m not quite sure what to think of it yet. Like all things, there will be some very positive aspects, but I’m sure there will be some negative aspects as well.”

Supporting VMware’s Multicloud Strategy

The partners are also behind VMware’s multicloud strategy, and moving from a cloud-first to a “cloud-smart” approach.

“I think the transformation to multicloud is the future in general,” Calabrese said. “We’ve seen that where everything that VMware is doing is really kind of all tying into that. Everything from their customer experience, and now their customer-led support and customer success, and then even on top of that it really drives customers to then deliver the services as well. It’s been interesting to see the accelerated path that’s taken, and I think how quickly we will see the current state of VMware change to that.”

World Wide Technology is a technology provider for the top Fortune 500, and takes customers on their multicloud journeys, he said.

“And that’s obviously a very daunting thing for a lot of customers to really navigate toward,” Calabrese said. “What we’ll do is take everything from an overall journey and guide them down whatever path makes sense for them.”

ClearBridge fits into VMware’s multicloud strategy because it provides the consultants that are delivering the services, Korol said.

“I think that’s where the future is,” she said. “We’re going to have to, especially in light of …

… the current situation with transitioning to Broadcom, they have to expand their skills set and they have to expand their portfolio, and that’s what’s happening. And it’s our reality being in the cloud.”

Dizzion is building on multiple hyperscalers using VMware technology to deliver cloud services, Prather said.

“We’ve been multicloud focused since 2018,” he said.

VMware’s ‘Rich’ Partner Ecosystem Will Likely Continue After Broadcom Acquisition

Also at VMware Explore, we spoke with Zia Yusuf, VMware’s senior vice president of strategic ecosystem and industry solutions. He said despite the pending Broadcom acquisition, the “$13 billion business that VMware has that is deeply integrated into a very rich ecosystem of partners and has been for a while, likely will continue to do so.”

VMware’s Zia Yusuf

“I don’t see a world where that’s very different from that perspective,” he said. “And then we’ll have to see how that evolves and so on. But I think our success will continue to depend on a profitable, growing, passionate ecosystem of partners of various types.”

In the meantime, it’s not just business as usual, but “business at great speed and disruption,” Yusuf said.

“Many of our partners have their own relationship with Broadcom,” he said. “We’re driving our business, as is VMware in general. And as stones turn over the future, we’ll see what it brings and we’ll adjust. But we’re confident in our strategy. We’re confident in our engagement with our partners. We have a perspective on what it takes to be successful in a software ecosystem, and that’s what we’re architecting and trying to do.”

Yusuf said VMware is on a SaaS and subscription journey. But he isn’t sure how that could be impacted by the Broadcom acquisition.

“We’ve been on it for a couple of years,” he said. “You’ll see it accelerating in the sense of more products like vSphere+ and vSAN+, more products that are subscription- and SaaS-based. You’ll see it by the kind of announcement we made with Microsoft where that drives annual recurring revenue (ARR) because we can sell it on our paper and so on. It’s happening and we’ll see what happens next year.”