Broadcoms VMware - and it is so.

Perpetual licensing is no more.  It is not resting ... it is stone dead.

Further to the update in our May'22 blog Broadcom have announced a 'simplified offering lineup and licensing model' that will - of most interest - put an end to the availability of perpetual licenses. The statement itself is quite definitive:

• Complete the transition of all VMware by Broadcom solutions to subscription licenses, with the end of sale of perpetual licenses, Support and Subscription (SnS) renewals for perpetual offerings, and hybrid purchase program/subscription purchase program (HPP/SPP) credits beginning today (effective dates will vary). Additionally, we are introducing a bring-your-own-subscription license option, providing license portability to VMware validated hybrid cloud endpoints running VMware Cloud Foundation.

So as we predicted at the back-end of 2021, customers will no longer have the benefit of ownership to revert to - it's subscription all the way - and that is entirely at the behest (benevolence?) of the supplier. So now the observations begin in earnest. Will subscriptions result in the benefits commercial and otherwise that are promised, or will you find your choices are more limited, while your costs are not.

To challenge any degradation in your position you'll need the facts - the basis of your original position to compare to where you have arrived, and this may well be some years down the track, so again this is where a robust SAM function will step-up with the analytics and the matter of record to enable such a conversation to occur.

Overall - a sad chapter in the history of software licensing. Where choice is removed from the client it can only be bad.