Fundaments brings the VMware Cloud Service Provider Community together again

The Cloud market remains unsettled following Broadcom’s acquisition of VMware in November 2023. Larik-Jan Verschuren, CTO at Fundaments, sees this as well. “We are now seeing a major consolidation. In the Netherlands, there were 97 partners that could obtain VMware licenses, either directly or indirectly. From March 31, 2027, only six Pinnacle Partners will be able to do so. That announcement caused quite a stir earlier this year. After that, the market came to a standstill for a while. Now we are seeing emotions give way to acceptance and a more realistic view of the situation.”

Verschuren believes that completely moving away from VMware-based Cloud is not a smart decision for many Cloud Service Providers. “As a partner, you often have large ongoing contracts with certain expectations. Switching is complex and often not financially attractive. We also see that the product Broadcom is developing is still the best on the market. To be honest, I was concerned about the impact of the layoffs at Broadcom, but I’m seeing major progress in development. The product is anything but dead.”

All or nothing

According to Verschuren, the major difference compared to the past is that VMware by Broadcom is now focusing on a select target group. “In the past, VMware was often used to virtualize a small part of an environment. Broadcom wants to move away from those types of customers. The expectation is essentially that you purchase a complete modern private Cloud environment, with everything that comes with it. All or nothing, in other words. Broadcom is primarily targeting organizations that want to carry out compliance checks and audits and gain insight across the entire environment.”

Robbert Jan Ponsen agrees. He joined Fundaments in May. Between 2012 and 2021, he worked for VMware. “You can have all sorts of opinions about it, but Broadcom is making a clear choice for large accounts. They want end customers who use the entire stack and partners with extensive knowledge and their own people to manage things. All other Service Providers are referred to Pinnacle Partners like us, where they can purchase a complete service.”

“We have been thinking about how we can help the other partners,” says Verschuren. “We want to preserve the existing ecosystem of Cloud Service Providers as much as possible, along with the business models of these partners. There are two possible routes. These partners can become our customers and have their customers hosted with us. In addition, we offer the possibility of working together in an embedded model. Within Broadcom’s rules, we take their business models into account as much as possible.”

New community

A common complaint among partners without Pinnacle status is that they are missing important information. “There used to be a very large community of VMware Cloud providers, which received significant investment,” says Ponsen, who was involved in that community at the time. “Broadcom has now put an end to that. Partners without Pinnacle status can only find information on the website, while they need to be kept well informed and have opportunities to share knowledge.”

“We are addressing that need now,” Verschuren continues. “We are bringing the VMware partner community back to life. The goal is for everyone to stay well informed about what is happening. We understand the challenges other partners are facing and want to help ease them.”

Nuance around price increases

Ponsen believes Fundaments is the right party to take on this role. “We are not the largest of the six Dutch Pinnacle Partners. But when it comes to knowledge and experience, we are ahead of the market. That is also how I viewed Fundaments when I was still working at VMware. As a result, we are very well positioned to share VMware knowledge. This can cover commercial topics, the partner program and the product itself.”

The price increases that have generated significant discussion will certainly be addressed within the community. Verschuren: “As mentioned, virtualizing just a small part of an environment has become much more expensive. That is often what people are referring to when they say Broadcom has significantly increased its prices. The difference is that you now pay a transparent price for a complete modern private Cloud. In some cases, you can even benefit from the new licensing structure. We do not need to defend the Broadcom/VMware story, but there is some nuance to the stories about the price increases. We are happy to discuss that.”

Fundaments wants to share its knowledge with other partners, but the main goal is, of course, for partners to learn from one another. Ponsen: “I always enjoyed seeing competitors being completely open with each other in the former community. It makes sense, because they face the same challenges. The market is also large enough for that. I expect that to happen again now.”

First event

The new VMware Cloud Provider Community will kick off on October 1 with a Community Day at a unique location in Utrecht. Ponsen: “There will be speakers from the market, from Fundaments and from VMware. Topics will include what has happened over the past six months and how partners can deal with it. The announcements made during VMware Explore, which starts on August 31 and which we will be attending, will also be discussed. What does VMware’s roadmap look like?”

More information about the VMware Cloud Provider Community Day is available at www.cloudprovidercommunity.nl.

Information hub

Fundaments wants to determine together with the community which topics will be discussed next time and which activities will subsequently be organized. “It is certainly not our intention to determine all of that ourselves,” says Ponsen. “We will talk to each other about what everyone expects from the community.”

“Above all, we want to make sure that partners have the right arguments to make informed decisions about their future with VMware,” Verschuren concludes. “The community should primarily serve as an information hub.”

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