The survey, which polled executives, managers and professionals at VMware customer organizations, shows cost remains the leading factor in virtualization roadmap decisions. Seventy-three percent of respondents identified savings as a top priority. The findings come more than three years after Broadcom completed its acquisition of VMware in 2022, a deal that has led to significant licensing changes and price increases.
In May 2025, cloud customer group the European Cloud Competition Observatory (ECCO) and cloud trade association CISPE claimed Broadcom had increased VMware licensing costs to between eight and 15 times their previous levels. Broadcom responded by stating it was working to advance the European Union's sovereign cloud objectives and enable enterprises to "accelerate innovation, provide more choice, and address their most complex technology challenges."
Despite these assurances, 48 percent of survey respondents said they do not currently plan to move any assets to VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF), Broadcom's subscription-based platform and preferred migration path. Sixty percent are instead considering a multi-hypervisor strategy.
Keith Costello, chief operating officer at Rimini Street, which sells third-party support for VMware, said the findings highlighted a need for practical, vendor-independent strategies. "These survey findings reinforce the need for practical, vendor-independent strategies that put business priorities back on the client's terms," Costello said.
Barriers to switching were also identified: operational complexity (40 percent), multi-vendor management challenges (38 percent), securing an increased attack surface (37 percent), and team skills requirements (37 percent).
The shift away from VMware has already begun. In June, UK retailer Tesco announced it was replacing VMware with an alternative product and pursuing a licensing lawsuit against Broadcom, with a High Court trial scheduled no earlier than November 2027. Gartner, which had argued as early as November 2024 that customers were worse off as a result of the acquisition, predicted last month that more than half of enterprises would begin proofs of concept for alternatives to their VMware deployments by 2029. It said: "By 2029, 55 percent of enterprises will initiate proofs of concept for alternative distributed hybrid infrastructure products to replace their VMware-based deployments and embrace hybrid cloud infrastructure delivery, up from 25 percent in 2026."