VergeIO: Survey Reveals VMware Customers’ Top Concerns

A recently conducted survey of hundreds of VMware, Inc.‘s customers sheds light on growing concerns they have about the state of the virtualization software and the company behind it – ranging from rising licensing costs, ransomware vulnerabilities and a diminishing quality of support.

VergeIO, Inc. spent 2 months surveying and conducting in-person interviews with hundreds of existing VMware customers. The results of the research have been released in a report entitled, State of the VMware Customer.

Among key issues found were:

• Pricing concerns – 84% of respondents indicated that they were concerned about VMware’s current and future costs, with many highlighting ‘per-core’ renewal quotes and licensing agreements that require a commitment to Y/Y spending increases as additional points of distress.
• Ransomware resiliency – With a rise in ransomware attacks exploiting specific VMware vulnerabilities, 77% of customers worried about their data resiliency. A number of those interviewed indicated that their VMware environments had already suffered a ransomware attack, with recovery efforts taking more than 2 weeks despite having reasonable backup procedures in place.
• Technical support – 60% of customers expressed their concern with VMware’s ability to provide quality technical support, with those interviewed stating the difficulty in receiving support via phone calls. Others lamented slow response times to emails during outages.

These survey results also come amidst rumors of VMware focusing on major enterprise accounts with a shift towards a more expensive pricing model post the Broadcom acquisition. Because of these concerns, more than 87% of respondents indicated that they are currently researching alternative infrastructure platforms to VMware. 

While rising prices were a top issue among VMware customers, a vast majority indicated that they are unwilling to sacrifice capabilities in order to save money. Top priorities of VMware replacement from those surveyed were migration (76%), ability to use existing hardware (72%) and the desire to do more with that existing hardware (61%).

“Even before the Broadcom acquisition, customers have had concerns about VMware’s pricing strategy and pace of development,” said George Crump, CMO. “VMware has built its offering through a series of technology acquisitions, resulting in a solution that is bloated, complex and expensive. VergeIO takes a different approach. VergeOS’ unified codebase streamlines the infrastructure, making it more scalable, efficient, higher performing, less complex and easier to support – the very qualities that respondents in the survey are looking for.”