Following its acquisition of VMware, Broadcom has established three pillars to which the new strategy is linked, these are: simplifying the portfolio, focusing on added value and improving the ecosystem.
Earlier, we discussed portfolio simplification. For Cloud Service Providers, such as Fundaments, this makes VMware Cloud Foundation the only licensed product that can be purchased. All separate products developed by VMware, but also integrated through acquisitions, can no longer be purchased separately. Everything falls under VMware Cloud Foundation, with a few separate add-ons for networking & security, Tanzu Services (for K8s), Disaster Recovery and Private AI services. This combination of VMware Cloud Foundation and add-ons has made it easy to choose a licence.
But what does this mean for the technology: has business been dropped? The answer is no, only the division on end-user compute (Horizon View and Workspace One) has been sold to Omnissa and therefore dropped from the programme components. For the rest, the new composition of products is a complete package offering all VMware components. This immediately shows the strategy on offering added value: having all options ‘on’ makes it possible to offer a lot of added value on the basic virtualisation technology that VMware brought with vSphere. And yes, this complete set of products have been priced differently. Choosing the basic functionality is therefore no longer commercially interesting and forces the user to consider the added value. The Swiss pocket knife is no longer deployed only for slicing, but can also be used on all other functions.
With this forced functionality availability also comes a piece of complexity. If only the basics were always used, adding value also means more knowledge and expertise. And the latter is what is the last pillar of Broadcom's strategy: deploy the ecosystem. Broadcom recognises Cloud Service Providers (Premier and Pinnacle partners) as expertise partners when it comes to using the VMware product portfolio. The simplification in customer approach has resulted in VMware Sales still focusing on strategic customers. For all other customers, the Cloud Service Providers are put forward as expert partners who can guide implementation of the VMware Cloud Foundation products.
This development creates market redistribution: VMware products will be deployed in propositions to the market more and result in a stronger response in the Private Cloud domain. Let's face it: the comparison of a Private Cloud solution using only vSphere virtualisation technology versus a hyperscaler infrastructure has become a discussion about cost rather than value. It will therefore lead, on one side, to parting ways with parties seeking only that virtualisation, but I think the Private Cloud segment will actually accelerate its conversion to a more specific Cloud that brings a lot of value, such as concepts on data migration, ransomware protection, data and database services and Private AI. All components that can be realised with that Swiss army knife called VMware Cloud Foundation.
The journey that Fundaments is taking its customers on is already seeing developments that call for VCF components precisely. Our sovereign Cloud based Cloud Director with linked firewall and network segmentation and integrated fallback, is a result of that. However, we are now in the midst of a new generation of propositions that will emerge from this. I will discuss this further in the next blog article.
Want to know more? Our Cloud Experts will be happy to help. You can reach them directly by calling 088 4227 227 or emailing info@fundaments.nl.
Part three of this blog series by Larik-Jan will be published next week: ‘Cloud: the journey that calls for a tour guide’.
