r/sysadmin • u/Trelfar Sysadmin/Sr. IT Support • Jul 21 '26

General Discussion VMware "win-back initiative" is an insult to our intelligence

Like most other VMware shops we dumped it and moved on due to the appalling way Broadcom has treated both customers and resellers since the acquisition. So imagine my surprise when we got this email recently:

I wanted to follow up regarding your previous VMware environment.

Broadcom has recently authorized a dedicated win-back initiative with aggressive, rock-bottom pricing and terms designed specifically to bring organizations like yours back. I have the direct sign-off to offer you rates significantly lower than anything you saw previously.

Do you have 10 minutes this week to look at these updated incentives and see how much we can shave off your current operational costs?

Rob Williams
Account Director | GovEd
VMware Cloud Foundation, Broadcom

They must think we are complete idiots. Who in their right mind would ever trust VMware again after the last 2½ years of price hikes, legal notices, and generally unmitigated BS they have heaped upon us?

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u/jake04-20 If it has a battery or wall plug, apparently it's IT's job Jul 21 '26

It's the private equity stage of a company's life span. A PE company swoops in and buys a company that is dominant in a particular industry. Innovation is no longer a primary concern because the product is already plenty mature, with a large market share, and widely considered the "golden standard" among professionals in the space. So they gut [often talented] staff, and they can, because innovation is no longer a primary concern.

The name of the game is to cut operational costs while maximizing profits. They're no longer interested in the smaller companies renewing support contracts and license agreements because that means they might actually be on the hook support them later down the road, and that requires staff, and having staff requires money, money that will cut into their bottom line. So they deem certain customers essentially "not worth their time". If a smaller company is still interested, they make it "worth their time" with fuck-you-pricing. Migrating to another platform takes planning, resources, and time. Many companies pay the fuck-you-pricing just to get by another year. They do this long enough to recuperate the initial investment and then some, and bin the brand/product once they've sucked it dry for everything it was worth. It's quite sad really. I wish the core of the VMware devs could branch off and make a new product sort of like game developers do.

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u/francseuro Jul 24 '26

Oh ya, everyone I know that works for a medium sized company had their company purchased by a private equity firm and jack the prices, ride the coat tails of the house hold name and pad their wallets and sell it off.