2. Margrethe Vestager, European Commission

European Union antitrust officials plan to slap Broadcom with a warning for anticompetitive practices they believe could come with Broadcom’s acquisition of VMware.

Reuters reported that the European Commission will lay out a statement of objection to the $61 billion merger in the coming weeks. 

The massive acquisition, which drastically accelerates the chipmaker’s expansion into software, would come with serious implications from the channel. The integration will reportedly focus VMware’s channel more on SMB customer accounts, as Broadcom seeks to focus on 600 large accounts, from which VMware draws about 70% of its recurring revenue.

That said, the European Commission’s concerns are over Broadcom’s potential ability to undermine competition.

“We are concerned that after the merger, Broadcom could prevent its hardware rivals to interoperate with VMware’s server virtualization software,” said Margrethe Vestager, executive vice president of competition policy. “This would lead to higher prices, lower quality and less innovation for customers and consumers.”

Find out more about what activities the EC has engaged in.