VMWARE license and broadcom

[coppercone2]

https://yro.slashdot.org/story/25/05/07/1856255/vmware-perpetual-license-holders-receive-cease-and-desist-letters-from-broadcom

Well, I personally hate those VM machines. I have seen environments setup that totally end up sucking because of virtual machines.. but I thought that its funny they send cease and desist letters to orgs.. after a support contract ended

So they let you DL updates then did a backsie. Pretty dirty. I don't think Broadcom has a great reputation as a company either. But to me it feels like some sort of trap to take away stuff they gave away. In a sense its like giving someone free girders (of low quality) because a floor was starting to sag and then demanding they pay for it after the building is welded up. ! Teamsters and "associated organizations" come to mind. Something related to delayed hidden fees involving already poured  foundations etc....

Whenever something like this happens it proves that virtualization is fragile

The end result is basically legal ransomware

And I don't understand how they can audit if a service contract is up. What is the justification lol

[DimitriP]

Someone was excited!

https://investors.broadcom.com/news-releases/news-release-details/broadcom-completes-acquisition-vmware

Hock Tan, President and Chief Executive Officer of Broadcom, said, "We are excited to welcome VMware to Broadcom and bring together our engineering-first, innovation-centric teams as we take another important step forward in building the world's leading infrastructure technology company. With a shared focus on customer success, together we are well positioned to enable global enterprises to embrace private and hybrid cloud environments, making them more secure and resilient. Broadcom has a long track record of investing in the businesses we acquire to drive sustainable growth, and that will continue with VMware for the benefit of the stakeholders we serve."

[coppercone2]

more like making a team to engineer legal problems for people LOL


I don't follow it, but it sounds like it might be one of those things where they buy things to destroy competition

Any sane company that has a semblance of respect for customers would not do this 'backsie'. I mean I think its been generally completely hated and regarded as treachery since the dawn of time. A first grader trading lunch items might try to pull that trick

It seems that their business model may have been inspired by aliens in the movie Independence day?
I wonder though, basically the way its described that they will buy a company and try to force it to work with only big companies by raising prices then getting rid of it. So its like goal is to exploit large companies. I wonder if large companies will start to predict this kind of behavior to mitigate their own losses. Because IMO the truth is that innovation / quality of service goes down when you are focused with less customers (there is less learning going on).. so essentially it becomes like a legacy product where evolution is severely dampened. Then that means that the big boys are not getting the cutting edge service that they want, just by nature of how things work, as soon as a company like broad com is in charge of something like VMWARE for a little while.

I think that the big companies throwing money around expect the cutting edge for the money, and that basically a company is sharpened by customer interaction (more is better, it guides engineering and R&D.. its actually a feedback process), and when they get rid of their customers to 'streamline' the sharp thing they want becomes dull instead of sharpening itself. So it would be wise for big companies to migrate ASAP instead of treating it as 'normal'. Its like soil that will run out of nutrients because they got rid of the little fauna, bees, etc and its only elephants stomping around. Kind of like reduced trade for countries (you turn into North Korea). The sudden price hike of VMware licenses is more like some kind of great leap forward then wise economically focused assistance/guidance. And it does not look like its related to a corporation vs corporation 'war' of any kind, its just their standard behavior (which seems exploitative) seen with what happened with various acquisitions in various sectors/markets


So I feel basically now the VMWARE motto is going to be 'our premium services are about to feel like legacy software pretty soon'. (or anything that got broadcommed)


"we can make it cut faster for a little bit if we get rid of the self sharpening feature". And after doing that for a while the edge will be cracked, dinged, dented and basically not serviceable.


I always noticed that. THere is the idea that you get after reading some corporate symposium about the future of this or that industry or product. Then there is the other thing where you hear tons of different customers say "I would like this feature....". Then you know the money is gonna be what the people are asking for not what some theory said. In hardware its like figuring out that people want kick stand for a meter not another digit or built in laser pointer or whatever idea some isolated sets of interactions brought you to. If you stop interacting with the down to earth (poorer) customers you will end up with some insane shit like a juicario. I feel a little like this about R&S test equipment products, power supplies built around meeting specs you never thought mattered with user interfaces that make sense on zortron 15. It must have came from a insanely high powered B2B meeting, perhaps between two parties that had no idea what their speaking about. Of course this is a bit of a exaduration (about R&S) but I really wonder. And I don't mean interactions with the 'dirt poor' (like forum posters, in terms of industry), but just smaller companies (or poorly funded or less staffed/funded departments in large companies) that are being more innovative/practical and spend more time thinking about certain things regarding efficiency that are taken for granted.... like getting a lab manager for a smaller company to tell you about what they see/want for their 'short term'. Your only gonna get that info doing business with them, regardless of how many email surveys and shit you send!

[ejeffrey]

I don't follow it, but it sounds like it might be one of those things where they buy things to destroy competition

Nah.  It's more they bought vmware to bleed it dry.  VMware was the industry standard because it was the first, it worked, and was still basically cheap.

Broadcom bet that they could soak existing customers for enough money to earn the purchase price before people could change.  Even though free or nearly free options already exist and often have better performance the features are always slightly different so it takes time and engineering effort to switch.  Plus there is a supply chain issue.  Vendors like Cisco sell software that they only support running on VMware.  So ciscos customers don't only need to change their own infrastructure, they need their vendors to update theirs.

Healthcare and other regulated industries also have to audit major changes to their infrastructure that affects privacy or security.

So almost everyone is moving away from VMware, faster or slower.  Soon they will be left with a much smaller customer base of price insensitive or regulatory locked in customers.  Eventually even those customers will find they are using a dead end product line for which they can't easily hire administrators much like mainframes and cobol.

I have no reason to doubt that broadcom did the math right and they will extract more money from burning VMware to the ground than it cost to buy.  Macroeconomically it's a disaster but the real cost is all the customers and channel vendors who have to waste time and money migrating just to maintain status quo rather than doing work that actually improves their businesses.

[coppercone2]

lol

[Halcyon]

I don't think Broadcom has a great reputation as a company either.

I work in Cybersecurity and we still had a few sites using VMware Carbon Black (yes I know, there are far better solutions out there, that's not the point).

Previously, we could just email VMware and talk to a person if we had any issues or needed new sites staged. Easy enough. These days, you can't even raise a support ticket with Broadcom in relation to Carbon Black. They got rid of the old support portal and rolled everything into Broadcom's own system. In order to even raise a ticket in their system, you need an active contract, which is a mandatory field in their support system.

There's no one you can call, no one you can email. Eventually, after a few blunt emails to an old distributer of VMware software, they put me in touch with some manager at Broadcom, who basically said "Yeah, I don't know" and my query progressed no further.

I will never do business again with anyone or buy any product attached to the Broadcom name, even if it means paying twice as much.

[Nominal Animal]

I will never do business again with anyone or buy any product attached to the Broadcom name, even if it means paying twice as much.

Does that include Raspberry Pis, noting that Raspberry Pi Foundation is just the "isolated PR extension" of Broadcom?

I apologize, I couldn't resist.  My own experience with Broadcom is such that I've considered the company to be worth avoiding if possible for well over a decade now.

[Halcyon]

I will never do business again with anyone or buy any product attached to the Broadcom name, even if it means paying twice as much.

Does that include Raspberry Pis, noting that Raspberry Pi Foundation is just the "isolated PR extension" of Broadcom?

I apologize, I couldn't resist.  My own experience with Broadcom is such that I've considered the company to be worth avoiding if possible for well over a decade now.

Not necessarily. With things like RPi's, they are standalone. All warranty claims can go through the reseller, I would never have to deal with Broadcom. The problem with cloud products (like Carbon Black) is that you're at the mercy of the manufacturer. Even as a "Super Admin", you can't even disable or remove user accounts (for example, if someone leaves the company), Broadcom have to do it from their end, but their is no way of raising a ticket for them to action.

[MK14]

It seems crazy to me (Broadcom being able to buy up a company, to wildly exploit the customer base, to get as much money/profit as possible, and give little or nothing, in return).

Just like the anti-monopoly laws, unfair competition and stuff like that.  There should be robust laws against such things (if technically feasible).

Without turning this thread, in a political direction.  I think the current situation as regards globalization, massive international companies, and some government(s).  It would seem, to be a rather uphill problem, to get it dealt with.  In the current climate.

Also, there is a danger that after a few years.  Either Broadcom (or other similar businesses, who see what they did, the fact it worked out and they got away with it, Scott free).  Will do the same thing again, with other companies.

I can imagine, some government(s)/leaders, such as the EU.  Making laws against it, giving out massive fines and forcing the companies involved, by law, to amend their ways.  At least in the EU.

[Nominal Animal]

(I know I look like I "hate" Raspberry Pi's, but I do actually own a few different 'Pi boards.  It is just that I've found that the Broadcom attitude to Open Source projects fully defines that of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, whose permanent members never participate in Open Source projects (they use temporary staff), and the entire Foundation tries to avoid like a plague supporting any of the Free/Open Source projects their products fully rely on.  And, to avoid even the scent of anything GNU or Free/Open Source, whenever they have the opportunity, they rename things like Raspbian (Debian for Raspberry Pi) → Raspberry Pi OS.  It claims to be a non-profit Foundation, but their behaviour is exactly the same as (and seemingly dictated by the preferences of) Broadcom.  Thus, my complaint is how the Foundation behaves towards FOSS and especially FOSS projects and developers whose work product they themselves rely on, as if they were infected by some "eww, GPL and FOSS is ugly and dangerous, and we want nothing to do with it" -meme from Broadcom.  Or in short, because they behave just like Broadcom does.

All that said, I do nowadays avoid Cisco hardware and Oracle software because of their behaviour and/or security issues in their products; but don't see say Microsoft as being any longer pathologically opposed to GPL and FOSS like it used to a couple of decades ago.  So, it's all about reasonable behaviour to me, considering entire ecosystems and long-term profit-making, not just the short-term profits.  If their observable behaviour changes, my opinion tends to change also.  Just because Tux is my mascot, does not mean I have to be a GPL/Linux/FOSS zealot.)

[DiTBho]

I have no problem saying that I don't like RPI at all.
Never bought one. Never I will unless things change.

[DiTBho]

Anyway, Broadcom, Allwinner, Microsoft ...
All in the same basket of things to avoid

[Halcyon]

Anyway, Broadcom, Allwinner, Microsoft ...
All in the same basket of things to avoid

Techies used to say the same thing about Apple. How the tables have turned.

[madires]

Apple is still on my list of things to avoid. Unfortunately that list is steadily growing with time.

[DiTBho]

Anyway, Broadcom, Allwinner, Microsoft ...
All in the same basket of things to avoid

Techies used to say the same thing about Apple. How the tables have turned.

Well, sure, things change. Nothing is really static!

Our sun appears to be standing still at the center of solar system,
but in reality it orbits the center of the galaxy!

Apple has changed a lot, and for the better, since the death of Jobs,
a guy who went down in history as an "asshole" in name and in fact,
given that he treated his closest friends and collaborators terribly,
including the other Steve.

Since Jobs is gone, things are MUCH better,
Apple has significantly smoothed out those annoying closure policies
aimed only at making you buy their products for a price
of about 1.6x..2x times what they are actually worth
Not that they have stopped, but they are changing their attitude.

Then, well, you still get really pissed off when you buy an Apple Pro
and find out that you have to ask Apple for permission to replace *your* SSD.

In the meantime, however, today Apple has the best laptop hardware in the world,
with much, much more honest prices than before.

Even at Microsoft, things are changing ...

The problem is Bill Gates, who continues to hang around the campus
despite having left the CEO position in 2000
he certainly negatively influences many of the decisions that the various teams make later.

[madires]

Please ask some independent repair shops about Apple. There are also articles about Apple's greenwashing hyprocrisy. And don't forget the Apple tax. At the moment they are trying to ignore a court order about in-app purchases. Nope, they are as bad and as greedy as any other bad apple - oops - profit maximizing corporation.

[Halcyon]

Please ask some independent repair shops about Apple. There are also articles about Apple's greenwashing hyprocrisy. And don't forget the Apple tax. At the moment they are trying to ignore a court order about in-app purchases. Nope, they are as bad and as greedy as any other bad apple - oops - profit maximizing corporation.

There's no doubt that some Apple products have some really stupid design flaws, leading to failures etc... But the same can be said for just about every other computer manufacturer. Overall, Apple's hardware is absolutely rock solid compared to a lot of PC's out there. If you're in the market for a comparable quality PC laptop, it'll cost you. The bulk of the consumer stuff out there is just flimsy garbage.

I'm by no means an Apple fan boy, iPhones and iOS is still behind compared to some of the Android handsets out there, but their hardware and Mac OS compared to modern day Windows is really tough to beat.

[coppercone2]

for a desktop no way, for a laptop there is reason to what he is saying.

If you get a <1000$ laptop for work by my estimate you get 3 months before someone has to mail something in on the team. For $3000+ you get like 1 year before you need to do something (though usually it might just be a battery reconnect or resocketing some cards inside)

Laptops just break and are unreliable hardware. Apple is better for this

as soon as you have to do something with externals (i.e. complicated orders) you will need the ability to just have a laptop that will turn on 7 pm friday night to like send a 2 word email. Otherwise eventually a shit storm will occur

once things start getting expedited and questions come up your boss will regret he did not buy you a $10000 laptop and a backup that you keep at home in the closet 

[madires]

And what has the quality of laptops to do with app store rip-off, full control of availability and pricing of spare parts, and greenwashing hyprocrisy?

[coppercone2]

what I am saying its more likely to be able to turn on to send a email 

its a car that can get you to the post office it does not mean it has passenger seats, a trunk, cheap tires, etc

[coppercone2]

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/07/24/0125217/vmware-prevents-some-perpetual-license-holders-from-downloading-patches

I am not sure if there is something stupider to do for your reputation then to like stop security patches. When people basically get robbed and infiltrated, I guess they think they will convince people that their SW is good by being snooty about people deserving to get robbed? I think that must be microsofts plan too. That to me is like the person that is at this point uncool thinking they are going to do cool people things and get popular for it. "you hurt me so bad so I will let you get robbed, im so righteous" 

The headline will be "broadcom users get hacked". I think that is what people will remember. Not why specifically. I would only count on people seeing the name next to a positive or negative statement and making a decision to proceed based on that.

Kind of like if I hada corporate park or whatever. I don't want break ins. I don't want to explain the specifics of how that particular thing is at fault so that its totally OK and my business is still totally awesome and great. I just would not want my company name and the word robbed on the same page.  So like I would tell the park security to just ignore and not notify certain people there of threats to muscle and scare them? So I can have problems in the news with the safety of my corporate park? I think alot of people would say that kind of behavior is 'being a child' and also extremely dumb and short sighted. Even if its not... actively paying you, its part of a community, it still does word of mouth GOOD advertising (that broadcom software works and that its really safe)... and it will stay as a part  of your reputation forever.

If I tried to say "well someone near my plot of land had unfavorable relations with me so I let them get robbed" that sounds like mafia shit. it basically means your hood