VMware licence management has become an architectural and commercial problem, not a procurement formality, particularly since Broadcom moved licensing to subscription and pushed VMware Cloud Foundation. We give you independent commercial advisory: step back, assess the estate and your true licensing position, then approach the renewal with evidence and clarity rather than urgency. We work with VMware technology, but we work for you.
Why renewals changed
A VMware renewal can no longer be treated as a procurement formality. It is now an architectural, operational and commercial decision.
None of this means VMware is the wrong platform. It does mean the renewal deserves real scrutiny before you sign.
What we help you do
We build an evidence based view of your estate: actual utilisation versus licensed capacity, entitlement versus consumption, the architectural choices that drive cost, and which parts of VCF you genuinely need. A factual baseline, and your true licensing position, before any commercial discussion.
We remove historic waste and challenge assumptions before contracts are signed: right sizing clusters and hosts, removing unused capability, validating growth, and reducing the scope that inflates licensing. Optimisation often changes the outcome more than negotiation alone.
With clarity in place, we help you approach renewal confidently: commercial advisory and benchmarking, behind the scenes negotiation support, or direct vendor engagement on your behalf. Because we have worked vendor side, we know where flexibility still exists, even when it is not obvious.
A balanced view
VMware Cloud Foundation is a capable, enterprise grade platform. Deployed intentionally and sized correctly, it delivers operational consistency, integrated lifecycle management and a strong private cloud operating model.
Where organisations run into difficulty is rarely the platform itself. It is inherited architecture, over provisioning, and bundled capability that is not required. Our role is to help you separate platform value from commercial noise, so you only pay for what you actually need.
Questions
Independent guidance on how your VMware estate is licensed, what it should cost, and how to hold that position at renewal. Since Broadcom moved VMware to subscription and pushed VMware Cloud Foundation, the licensing question and the commercial question have become the same question. Advisory means an evidence based view of your entitlement, your consumption and your options, from someone with no vendor quota to hit.
Independent advisers, and it matters that they are independent. A reseller earns on the sale and Broadcom sets the price, so the honest broker in the room is the one with no stake in the outcome. We assess the estate, right size what is licensed, and manage the licensing position through renewal, having spent years on the vendor side of these deals ourselves.
Start before you negotiate. Most of the saving comes from optimisation: right sizing clusters and hosts, removing unused capability, validating real growth, and stripping the scope that inflates the bill. Only then does negotiation add to it. Cutting the licensed footprint to what you genuinely run usually moves the number more than arguing over the discount.
Yes. You can hand us the renewal entirely, keep it in house and use us for the strategy and benchmarking behind it, or anything in between. Because we have sat on the vendor side, we know where flexibility still exists even when the renewal is presented as non negotiable.
Often, but not always, and rarely at the scope first quoted. VCF is a capable platform, and for some estates it is the right home. The trap is paying for bundled capability you will not deploy. We separate the platform value from the commercial noise so you license VCF to what you actually need, or make the case to stay on what you have where that is viable.
Assess it on your own numbers, not a slogan. Staying and renegotiating is often the rational near term outcome, because the cost and disruption of moving can outweigh the increase, and a credible alternative is leverage even when you stay. Where exit genuinely is right, it should be onto a platform that fits and structured so you are not left over a barrel at the next renewal.
A true-up reconciles what you have deployed against what you are licensed for, and under Broadcom the exposure has sharpened: perpetual licence holders whose support has lapsed have received cease and desist letters and formal audit notices. Handle it as you would any vendor audit. Control who responds, measure your own position first from your own data, and do not concede deployment numbers you have not verified. We help you prepare the position before you answer, not after.
Yes. We assess your real utilisation against your entitlement, identify where the genuine exposure sits and where the vendor may be overreaching, and support or lead the response. Because we have worked vendor side, we know how these audits are run and where the leverage still sits for the customer.
Weighing whether to stay or move? Our guide VMware alternatives compared sets out the options honestly, and the VMware licensing cost calculator estimates your renewal under Broadcom per core pricing.
Send us your renewal or quote. We will give you an evidence based view of where the cost sits and what a fair outcome looks like. Or estimate it yourself first with our free calculator.