Rajiv Ramaswami, the president and CEO of Nutanix, has been on the road since 2024 pitching his company as the best alternative for VMware customers who are looking to migrate away from Broadcom.
His message to tech audiences is clear: he sees a multi-year opportunity to grab VMware customers who are unhappy with Broadcom’s licensing, pricing, channel program, and policy changes that continue to be issued.In one of his latest appearances, in a late June meeting with tech journalists in London, Ramaswami again made his argument. “We are the best alternative that customers have to Broadcom and VMware,” he told the audience. “Many customers are motivated to look for longer-term alternatives … the shift is clear.”Dave Gwyn, the senior vice president of worldwide channel sales at Nutanix, told ChannelE2E that customer interest in migrations away from Broadcom has continued to be consistently high since early last year.And for MSPs, the impacts of the Broadcom changes have been even greater, said Gwyn.“MSPs may have actually been the most victimized by Broadcom since the VMware acquisition began,” he said. “They have ridden a roller coaster of program changes – a partner one day, kicked out the next, then perhaps readmitted but with fewer benefits, reduced profitability, and certainly less trust in Broadcom’s long-term commitment to partnership.”In response, Nutanix increased its investment and focus on MSPs over the last 18 months, said Gwyn.“We are training and certifying MSPs at higher volumes than ever. To drive partner profitability and confidence in bench-building, our promotions are structured in a way that commits us to subcontracting most of the migration services to our partners rather than delivering it ourselves.”Nutanix is also working to help MSPs and other service providers respond to an increasing number of customers who prefer OPEX-based, as-a-service license models, said Gwyn. “We are seeing tremendous growth in demand from service providers wishing to standardize on Nutanix in providing these models to end customers,” he said. “We have signed service provider aggregator agreements in all theaters to help us support the demand.”There are big opportunities here for MSPs and other partners who want to work with Nutanix in helping with VMware migrations, said Gwyn.“Broadcom has its mission, and it has less to do with serving the market than it does with Broadcom profitability,” he said. “That is fine; their strategy is serving their investors quite well. But Broadcom’s strategy has certainly created chaos and challenges for VMware customers, and chaos and challenge represent opportunity for MSPs and partners who can help customers back to calmer waters.”Nutanix continues to offer Broadcom customers special deals, he said, including a VMware to Nutanix Migration promotion for new Nutanix customers who commit at least $100,000 to $300,000 in software over at least three years, while also agreeing to be a market reference for Nutanix, he said. The program includes one year of free Nutanix licensing as well as migration and deployment services support, provided by Nutanix migration services–authorized partners.In addition, a separate VMware Cloud on AWS to Nutanix NC2 Migration promotion is available for any current user of VMware Cloud on AWS to migrate to Nutanix NC2 on AWS, he said. This program includes one year of free Nutanix licensing as well as migration services.“We are spending a lot of time truly listening to customers and the challenges they are encountering,” said Gwyn. “This is not simply, ‘Here is a discount, hope it helps.’ We recognize the burden of paying license fees to both Broadcom and Nutanix simultaneously, and we recognize the cost of migration expertise. We have always put simplicity and customer service first, and our promotions are intended to hit the bullseye in helping customers through a difficult time that Broadcom has created.”Other vendors are also pushing VMware migration offerings to customers as well, including Platform9 and ClearScale and Matilda.
His message to tech audiences is clear: he sees a multi-year opportunity to grab VMware customers who are unhappy with Broadcom’s licensing, pricing, channel program, and policy changes that continue to be issued.In one of his latest appearances, in a late June meeting with tech journalists in London, Ramaswami again made his argument. “We are the best alternative that customers have to Broadcom and VMware,” he told the audience. “Many customers are motivated to look for longer-term alternatives … the shift is clear.”Dave Gwyn, the senior vice president of worldwide channel sales at Nutanix, told ChannelE2E that customer interest in migrations away from Broadcom has continued to be consistently high since early last year.And for MSPs, the impacts of the Broadcom changes have been even greater, said Gwyn.“MSPs may have actually been the most victimized by Broadcom since the VMware acquisition began,” he said. “They have ridden a roller coaster of program changes – a partner one day, kicked out the next, then perhaps readmitted but with fewer benefits, reduced profitability, and certainly less trust in Broadcom’s long-term commitment to partnership.”In response, Nutanix increased its investment and focus on MSPs over the last 18 months, said Gwyn.“We are training and certifying MSPs at higher volumes than ever. To drive partner profitability and confidence in bench-building, our promotions are structured in a way that commits us to subcontracting most of the migration services to our partners rather than delivering it ourselves.”Nutanix is also working to help MSPs and other service providers respond to an increasing number of customers who prefer OPEX-based, as-a-service license models, said Gwyn. “We are seeing tremendous growth in demand from service providers wishing to standardize on Nutanix in providing these models to end customers,” he said. “We have signed service provider aggregator agreements in all theaters to help us support the demand.”There are big opportunities here for MSPs and other partners who want to work with Nutanix in helping with VMware migrations, said Gwyn.“Broadcom has its mission, and it has less to do with serving the market than it does with Broadcom profitability,” he said. “That is fine; their strategy is serving their investors quite well. But Broadcom’s strategy has certainly created chaos and challenges for VMware customers, and chaos and challenge represent opportunity for MSPs and partners who can help customers back to calmer waters.”Nutanix continues to offer Broadcom customers special deals, he said, including a VMware to Nutanix Migration promotion for new Nutanix customers who commit at least $100,000 to $300,000 in software over at least three years, while also agreeing to be a market reference for Nutanix, he said. The program includes one year of free Nutanix licensing as well as migration and deployment services support, provided by Nutanix migration services–authorized partners.In addition, a separate VMware Cloud on AWS to Nutanix NC2 Migration promotion is available for any current user of VMware Cloud on AWS to migrate to Nutanix NC2 on AWS, he said. This program includes one year of free Nutanix licensing as well as migration services.“We are spending a lot of time truly listening to customers and the challenges they are encountering,” said Gwyn. “This is not simply, ‘Here is a discount, hope it helps.’ We recognize the burden of paying license fees to both Broadcom and Nutanix simultaneously, and we recognize the cost of migration expertise. We have always put simplicity and customer service first, and our promotions are intended to hit the bullseye in helping customers through a difficult time that Broadcom has created.”Other vendors are also pushing VMware migration offerings to customers as well, including Platform9 and ClearScale and Matilda.
