Broadcomcalypse is upon us, the end is near!

That headline pretty much sums up what we've been hearing since news of Broadcom's VMware acquisition broke.

Would another “Watch out for the Broadcom-man”-story do the cloud industry any favors? We think not. It certainly wouldn't help the companies that are currently running VMware either. Better perhaps to try to learn something from whatever “this” is.

Our modus operandi

We pride ourselves on being factual and outspoken about topics such as open source, digital sovereignty, and compliance and their importance for the digital future of Europe. Sometimes this means smashing a few Windows and pointing some fingers at genuine problems and sneaky stuff that others do in the cloud industry. We believe it is necessary to keep shining a light on the facts. Particularly in a time when it’s a struggle to be heard in the storm of billion dollar investments, shiny data transfer deals, and the next super-convincing arguments that falsely claim hyperscalers can keep EU data from prying eyes.

It's all about leverage

This one got us thinking, though. The licensing changes Broadcom is implementing, reflect what they think brings the most shareholder value. Either way we look at it, those are the facts and the position Broadcom found itself being able to leverage. This is overly simplified, and there is much more to this story than we're covering here. But in a nutshell, it comes down to leverage.

What’s your position, what’s your vendors’, and what will it take to make you stay or walk away? The VMware lock-in effect is very real, but whining about it isn’t going to change much, is it?

What can we learn?

Apart from – of course – offering our help, we truly want to learn something from affected businesses out there.

Which path do users take?

Have you decided to cough up? Are you looking at alternatives and if so, have you found anything interesting? Are you leaning towards some other proprietary cloud technology or have you decided to go open source?

Share your story in the comments. We genuinely want to hear how you are holding up, and others might need some inspiration as to what they can do.

In case you need us

If you require us in any way, we are here. At Cleura , we are on a mission to help shape a sustainable digital future. For us, it all begins by giving our customers the freedom to innovate using cloud services built with open source software.

• Talk to Magnus Brehmer or Andrè Nicholas Hansen to learn how Cleura can help maximize ROI of your cloud infrastructure.
• Arman Borghem is here to help with guidance in cloud regulatory & compliance matters.
• Martin Dahl or Tobias Rydberg can answer technical and architectural questions relating to our OpenStack -based cloud services.