Fury eased as VMware makes 'Vtax' U-turn

Vendor reverses decision to cap unlimited memory on vSphere to 96GB

VMware partners have welcomed the vendor's decision to make a U-turn on its controversial vRAM memory licence cap.

The virtualisation giant introduced the 96GB cap about a year ago but is thought to be announcing details of a reversal at its VMworld conference later today.

Paul Sweeney, managing director of ANS Group, welcomed the about-turn and said the company's customers were angry about the initial move to cap the memory usage, which he saw as "profiteering" by the vendor. He said about 30 of his customers were affected.

"There was no consultation with us [about the cap]," Sweeney said. "They just said 'here it is' and caught us unaware. There was a real uproar from the channel, at least within our customer base.

"It left our customers with two options; to either sweat their assets even more to make sure they only used the 96GB, leaving a lot of memory untapped which they had already paid for, or to buy more licensing which they had not budgeted for."

VMware users took to Twitter to express their relief at the decision to remove what they named the "Vtax".

Twitter user Gabriel Chapman said: "I truly don't think VMware understood the anger about #vtax when it first appeared. Good companies listen to their customers."

Tal Klein took to the social network and said: "#vtax was the worst decision [Paul] Maritz ever made."

The vSphere product with unlimited memory was a popular choice for end users, according to Sweeney, as it made other vendors' solutions such as Cisco UCS servers more scalable.

He added that he welcomed the vendor's change in strategy, but warned that the cap may have opened customers' eyes to other vendors' offerings.

He said: "I am not aware of any of our customers that paid for the extra licensing [above 96GB], but there will be those who have and will be frustrated. If that were me, I would be knocking on VMware's door asking for my money back.

"It could have potentially done them some damage. I do not know of any customers who are directly flipped over to Microsoft, but it gives its Hyper-V more of an audience and is a chink in VMware's armour now."

VMware was unavailable for comment as this story was published.