A year after Broadcom took control of VMware, it's in the box seat

Analysis Broadcom completed its acquisition of VMware one year ago, on November 22, 2023. Has it been a success?

On the financial scoreboard, Broadcom says the deal looks like a winner. Revenue is on the rise already – a sign that customers are buying into its strategy of no longer selling standalone support services to holders of perpetual licenses and instead offering per-core subscriptions to bundles of software and support. It leads with the VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) private cloud stack, and points out that it's effectively lowered prices for the components of the bundle. Overall bills are higher – because they include support – but Broadcom asserts it delivers such strong ROI that customers end up ahead over time.

Broadcom has also claimed it's cut costs at VMware deeper and faster than it hoped. And its share price has bounced by a greater percentage than can be explained solely by ...