VMware perpetual license holders receive cease-and-desist letters from Broadcom
1 min read
Summary
Broadcom has sent cease and desist letters to owners of VMware perpetual licenses with expired support contracts.
This comes after the company ended perpetual license sales after its acquisition of the software, with users now only able to use the software they purchased.
Following the end of sales, users have also been unable to renew support services for their software unless they already had a pre-existing contract.
The move aims to push VMware users to buy subscriptions to VMware products, which have seen costs rise by as much as 1,000%.
Some customers have continued using VMware unsupported while they look for alternatives, with competitors and devirtualisation among the options being considered.
The letter tells users that they must stop using any maintenance releases/updates, minor releases, major releases/upgrades extensions, enhancements, patches, bug fixes or security patches, excluding zero-day security patches.
Using support past the expiry date constitutes a breach of the VMware agreement and an infringement of VMware’s intellectual property rights.
