Entry Details

About the Entry

Category: 
Online > Event Coverage > New England

Title of entry: 
Controversy follows VMware acquisition

Issue or Publication date:
08/19/2024, 8/27/2024, 8/29/2024, 8/30/2024, 11/5/2024

Publication name: 
Network World

View Website home page:
https://www.networkworld.com/

Links to entry URLs

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Entry URL(s), if applicable:
Please enter a URL that will direct judges to the entry: 
https://www.networkworld.com/article/3488447/customer-concerns-loom-as-vmware-explore-event-approaches.html
Additional URLs, if needed:
https://www.networkworld.com/article/3496452/with-project-cypress-vmware-brings-generative-ai-to-cyberdefense.html
https://www.networkworld.com/article/3497951/broadcom-ceo-pitches-on-prem-private-clouds.html
https://www.networkworld.com/article/3499159/broadcoms-vision-for-vmware-highlights-private-clouds-private-ai.html
https://www.networkworld.com/article/3599188/vmware-launches-velorain-using-ai-ml-to-improve-network-performance.html

Entry Essay: 
Network World provides content that addresses the technology developments essential to networking professionals who build and maintain the digital infrastructure that underpins modern business. We do that with a mix of online news, features, special packages, and a stable of expert bloggers.
The readers we target are practitioners who operate data centers that are housed on premises and within public clouds. Their task is to make the information that resides there secure and accessible to people and applications that need it. That simple goal is enormously complex and involves efficiently storing data as well as creating and constantly upgrading the networks over which this data travels. The responsibilities are varied: End users must be authenticated, communications must be protected, bandwidth must be adequate to minimize delay, attackers must be thwarted, and data must be gathered and analyzed.
VMware Explore 2024 – the flagship customer event for VMware users – was held August 26-29, marking the first time for the popular event since Broadcom finalized its $61 billion acquisition of the virtualization pioneer and private cloud powerhouse. The acquisition is significant for IT teams for more than its enormous price tag. VMware’s virtualization platform is in use at more than 90% of Fortune 500 companies, and Broadcom’s track record with its other big-ticket buys, including Symantec and CA Technologies, is poor.
So, all eyes were on Broadcom as VMware Explore 2024 kicked off.
We timed our first story, “Customer concerns loom as VMware Explore event approaches,” to publish just before the event. It looks at what Broadcom is doing with VMware – but it doesn’t just regurgitate complaints about licensing changes, price increases and rumored customer defections. We wrote about what attendees want to hear and see from Broadcom regarding its commitment to advancing VMware’s core virtualization and cloud platforms, which are vital technologies for our readers. We also dug into what it would entail for a large enterprise to actually move from VMware to a competitive platform with the security, scale, support and integration capabilities that our readers require.
As the event went on, we published multiple stories about keynote addresses, new product introductions and Broadcom’s VMware roadmaps, and we continued the coverage with on-site and remote reporting for the vendor’s EU version of the event, VMware Explore Barcelona.
Our extensive coverage captured promises from Broadcom’s CEO: “You’re asking us — you’re asking me, particularly — roll up your sleeves, do the hard work. And you’ll see over the next hour, that’s exactly what we have done. We are all about business at Broadcom, and we’re here to help you run your business more effectively. We’re not here to show you bright shiny objects.”
But it also added critical perspective from our writers, one of whom noted: “VMware’s retreat to a private cloud strategy was also marked by a distinct lack of new products.”