VMware Explore: VMware Partners 'Cautiously Optimistic' About Broadcom Acquisition

VMWARE EXPLORE — A sampling of VMware partners at this week’s VMware Explore in Las Vegas shows they’re cautiously optimistic about the upcoming acquisition by Broadcom.

In an interview with Channel Futures, Ricky Cooper, VMware’s head of worldwide partner and commercial sales, told us partners are excited about Broadcom‘s upcoming acquisition. When we spoke with a handful of VMware partners, they’re taking more of a wait-and-see approach.

Broadcom expects to complete the $61 billion acquisition on Oct. 30.

Jon Palmer, director of data center engineering at SHI, said “cautiously optimistic is the way I would word it.”

“We’ve seen historically what they’ve done with other vendors in the past with acquisitions and to the partner community; it always hasn’t been the best,” he said. “They’re saying good things. They’re saying all the right things with what they’re going to do with the business. So we’ll see what happens.”

Investment Welcome News to VMware Partners

Broadcom CEO Hock Tan told VMware Explore attendees that upon closing, Broadcom will immediately invest $2 billion in VMware.

“That’s always a good thing to hear that he’s going to invest in partner services and we’re here to build out our capabilities around it,” Palmer said. “But we’ll see what it brings.”

Juan Francisco Figueroa Cruz, director of professional services at Sintegradas, an IT services and consulting firm in Guatemala, is taking a wait-and-see approach. Sintegradas already works with Broadcom.

“I’ve been through the acquisitions of Symantec and other companies that we were partners with,” he said. “So based on previous experience, it’s really uncertain what to expect. Is it going to be the same behavior? I’ve heard a lot of promises on VMware independence and what the DNA conservation will be, so I guess we have to wait and see. And hopefully it remains unchanged. Maybe it’s stronger with all the Broadcom support, but let’s wait.”

Mark Vaughn, Presidio‘s senior engineering director, also said he’s cautiously optimistic.

“I know a little more since last year,” he said. “There’s still a lot that they can’t talk about yet and we’re all just waiting for the deal to close so that we can find out what the next step will be.”

The planned $2 billion annual investment is “very encouraging,” Vaughn said.

“It’s good to see them pre-announce it and I’m sure they’ll make additional commitments beyond that as well,” he said. “But it’s good to hear that they’re committing that type of finances to the relationship.”

Reassuring Customers

Jerry Rioux, People Driven Technology‘s enterprise architect, said he’s “pretty comfortable now” with the upcoming acquisition.

“Our customers had some anxiety about it, but we’ve been able to talk to them and ease their concerns,” he said.

Rioux also said the $2 billion investment is “great.”

“That’s a message we’ll be sharing with our customers for sure,” he said. “It was more reassuring that they want to keep a great product and keep it going.”

Akmal Grant, partner development manager at Liquid Web, didn’t share thoughts on the upcoming acquisition, but said there are opportunities ahead with the solutions announced during VMware Explore.

“There will be some opportunities, especially from our engineering standpoint,” he said. “We deal with partners. We partner with partners, developers who actually use the products themselves for their customers, so it will affect them more so than us directly. But I think definitely from what we saw there’s going to be some good changes coming down the pipe for us.”

Channel Futures talked to many of those partners in the VMware Explore Expo. We took photos of booths, including AWS, Microsoft, Dell, IBM and many more, that are in the slideshow above.