There was little sign of Broadcom at the event until the keynote address on the second day of the conference. At the start of the speech, VMware CEO Rangarajan Raghuram welcomed Chen Fuyang, who was sitting in the audience.
Speaking of the Broadcom deal, Raghuram said: “In May of this year, we announced our next big transition event. Since then, I’ve spent a lot of time talking to Chen Fuyang and his team to get started VMware’s next great phase of innovation.”
Chen and most VMware employees attended the meeting in person, and most Broadcom employees watched the event live, according to Raghuram.
With a Broadcom representative not on the list of speakers at the event, there has been constant speculation about what form the company will make. Many VMware employees and customers wanted more details about the deal, but Broadcom’s absence has left many uneasy.
On the first day of VMware Explore, when people saw that there wasn’t even a Broadcom employee or booth, there was more concern about whether the deal would work out.
It was previously reported that customers were “very concerned” about the Broadcom acquisition, believing the deal could close by 2023, at which point Broadcom could raise its offer to them. In past acquisitions, Broadcom has also bought companies at high prices, then slashed costs and raised the price of products or services to boost profits.
Especially after Broadcom announced plans to focus only on the first 600 customers, many smaller companies fear that the VMware acquisition will crowd them out. VMware used to be known for customer service.
“An acquisition like this usually stops innovation,” an IT person who works with small VMware clients in the oil industry told the conference. Several other smaller clients said they were concerned they might be forced into turn likeMicrosoftSuch big vendors, although they prefer VMware services.
“While we use Microsoft services in some ways, VMware goes to great lengths to serve its customers big and small,” said the IT director at the Portland Technology Bureau. “Microsoft will answer our questions, but they don’t need us, we just their small clients.”
But the oil industry IT person said seeing Chen Fuyang at the meeting made him more optimistic about the success of the acquisition, calling it a good sign. The numerous announcements made during the keynote also showed that VMware is still serious about continuing to innovate, he said.