European trade body lashes out at Broadcom’s VMware licensing changes

Anti-cloud practices

CISPE pointed out that the issue is not the subscription license model itself but that it doesn’t allow flexible pay-as-you-go models that help customers and providers scale resources to demand.

“Broadcom’s new terms are the opposite and are in essence anti-cloud, forcing partners to commit and pay in advance for virtualization capacity that they may never need,” the trade body said. 

CISPE noted that under the new terms, rather than employing a pay-as-you-go model based on actual usage — a common practice for cloud infrastructure and previously for VMware — customers are now required to make an upfront commitment to three years’ worth of capacity based on potential server core usage.

Members of CISPE include AWS and several other cloud companies like Aruba and Anexia.

“For us, it’s like being told the pacemaker we rely upon to stay alive is suddenly going to cost multiple times more to run,” Alexander Windbichler, CEO of Anexia, said in CISPE’s statement. “Yes, we can change it, but that requires finding an alternative, plus scheduling an operation and accounting for the rest and physiotherapy to recuperate. All of this takes time and resources, which we are not being offered. We demand a pause to consider our options and viable alternatives that will allow our business to prosper.”

Patronizing customers?

CISPE also criticized Broadcom for dictating customer needs and insisting that new prices are lower despite real-world evidence to the contrary.