Broadcom Reveals Its VMware Roadmap and Channel-Partner Plans

By Jean S. Bozman

For those who traveled to Las Vegas for the VMware EXPLORE conference, Broadcom revealed its roadmap for VMware’s software products and services – much of it centered on the enterprise and on-prem private clouds.

For those who listened online, watching the Internet video clips of the EXPLORE keynotes and breakout sessions, there was more emphasis on Edge and AI-based services. Importantly, the company announced the roadmap for VMware Cloud Foundation 9.X. (VCF 9.0), which will be its basis for enterprise-cloud management.

Still, it is undeniable that SMBs have a large share of the overall VMware installed base. And they are likely to see that the enterprise-and-edge vision for VMware’s future may be different from their longtime view of VMware software, in which VMware’s ESX and Tanzu were added to the widely distributed VMware installed base. To that end, Broadcom announced more about ESX and Tanzu .?

Learning More About the Channel Partner Program Is Key to Customer Plans

It is possible to get some impressions about the VMware EXPLORE event from the Broadcom website (www.broadcom.com ), along with short videos posted on “X” (formerly Twitter) and YouTube. However, the acquisition process was a long, drawn-out one, which awaited government approvals around the world before it was completed late last year. Broadcom acquired VMware for $69 Billion ($USD).

Now, Broadcom must do more to bring VMware’s customers – especially its SMB customers – up to date about what to expect in 2025. In short, Broadcom’s challenge is to communicate with both types of customers – enterprise and SMB – and to support them in different ways, depending on the style of application deployments across their IT landscapes.

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VMware's History and Customer Perspectives

VMware grew from a wide-ranging virtualization strategy, beginning in the early 2000s. What developed over 20 years of gradual adoption, by a variety of customer types, was a foundation technology so widely adopted that it was everywhere, spread throughout enterprises and SMBs alike.

Over 2.5 decades, VMware has been deployed widely, across customer types.Some have compared its ubiquity to peanut-butter spread. Today, VMware software is literally everywhere, even though its customers’ use patterns vary widely, depending on customer type, applications type, and geographic region.

It’s hard to find any IT shop that does not have VMware products, including the widely adopted V-LANs that tied many SMB servers together into a more unified software platform, starting in the 1990s.

In that sense, the adoption pattern over the last quarter-century, was similar to that of Novell’s NetWare, which was once the dominant software platform, aside from Windows NT and Unix. But that was before Linux and the hybrid-cloud revolution came along. Since then, the Linux and open-software technologies have remade the world’s IT landscape – and opening that landscape to public clouds designed round scale-out infrastructure.

Looking back, so much has changed since virtualization first appeared in the early 2000s – making VMware the virtualization powerhouse it became before the Cloud appeared in the 2010s. Today, there is competition in this space -- with multiple software-defined software options for customers extending -- and leveraging -- their Cloud and Edge deployments.

Now, vendors must decide how to address the differences in customers’ deployments that will emerge in this next era of Cloud and AI computing.

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The Broadcom Acquisition

The initial paragraphs of the official Broadcom press release of November 23, provided some clues, including the following paragraphs:

"Hock Tan, President and Chief Executive Officer of Broadcom, said, "We are excited to welcome VMware to Broadcom and bring together our engineering-first, innovation-centric teams as we take another important step forward in building the world's leading infrastructure technology company. With a shared focus on customer success, together we are well positioned to enable global enterprises to embrace private and hybrid cloud environments, making them more secure and resilient. Broadcom has a long track record of investing in the businesses we acquire to drive sustainable growth, and that will continue with VMware for the benefit of the stakeholders we serve."

"Broadcom's focus moving forward is to enable enterprise customers to create and modernize their private and hybrid cloud environments. At the core, Broadcom will invest in?VMware Cloud Foundation, the software stack that serves as the foundation of private and hybrid clouds. Incremental to Broadcom's investment in?VMware Cloud Foundation, VMware will offer a rich catalog of services to modernize and optimize cloud and edge environments, including VMware Tanzu to help accelerate deployment of applications, as well as Application Networking (Load Balancing) and Advanced Security services, and VMware Software-Defined Edge for Telco and enterprise edges."

Business Revenue Is the Driver

In business terms, the Broadcom emphasis on enterprise and Edge connectivity to enterprise networks makes sense. Broadcom is signaling its intent to focus on the enterprise, building on its investment in VMware’s core technology installed in that base. Customers will need to see that Broadcom intends to strengthen the VMware channel program with financial and people resources.

It is a time of change in enterprise plans for IT technology base, based on the evolution in Cloud and Edge hardware and software platforms. Many enterprise customers have said that the large public cloud services have become expensive, over time, when used throughout large enterprise IT organizations. That point was emphasized – loud and clear – in Broadcom’s VMware EXPLORE keynote presentations.

By building on the VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) software platform, enterprises can manage their cloud-centric applications – hoping to do so with greater cost control than when they ask the big cloud companies to do it for them. But large enterprises have the advantage of IT organizations and data-centers, both now evolving for the Cloud, AI and new networking and security concerns.

Some customers have already decided to “re-patriate” key applications that had migrated to public clouds in recent years, before moving some of their applications and data into on-prem private clouds for security, control, and cost reasons.

Not all applications will be repatriated to the private cloud, though. This turn toward private clouds is not universal. IDC pointed out in its Directions 2024 presentations (in Boston and San Jose this spring), with its forecasts showing continued mixed deployments (public cloud and on-prem deployments) supporting both public and private clouds for the period 2025-2030.

SMB Customers and the Channel Program

?VMware’s SMB customers will need Broadcom’s attention, too. Compared with large enterprises, SMB customers have a different set of priorities for extending, maintaining and funding their IT environments than the largest enterprise customers in VMware’s extensive installed base. The SMB customers need “high-touch” as much as they need “high tech” – no matter where the touch-points for service and support come from.

?SMB customers will increasingly see that attention coming in the company’s evolving channels strategy, which seeks to grow and strengthen Broadcom’s VMware channel-partner programs. Those programs will become increasingly important to Broadcom, as customers consider other styles of on-prem and off-prem deployments as the age of Cloud and AI offers many IT options.

?Clearly, VMware already has a substantial worldwide channels program, now delivered under the Broadcom brand. But we expect that channel to gain more investment – and to focus on the specifics of channel partners in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and in Asia, where most SMB customers have region-specific requirements.

An expanded channel-partner program – along with a focus on Edge computing – will help SMB customers to change their growing networks – often providing important support and management services as those changes are being made. This is why Broadcom’s marketing messages to SMB customers must be made crystal-clear – and will likely evolve in coming years, due to with wide variety of budgetary and security considerations within the SMB base.

Insights from the VMware EXPLORE Event

?As delivered on the public Internet, Broadcom’s best messages for SMB and longtime customers were likely understated. Without traveling to attend VMware EXPLORE in Las Vegas, customers will likely need to follow up with their local VMware support teams to find out more about 2024 updates for enterprise and SMB customer-sets. Local VMware events will help, too.

?Broadcom must be clear when communicating about its VMware software plans. It has experience in acquiring large software companies, including Computer Associates’ enterprise software business, and Symantec’s Veritas enterprise software business.

?Now is the time for more outreach and clarity to the full range of VMware customers – large, medium and small – who have invested in VMware software for two decades – or more.

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