VMware spills the beans on vRAM U-turn

Virtualisation giant opens up on its about-turn on controversial "vtax"

VMware has defended its U-turn on its vRAM memory licence cap, and insisted that any negative impact the short-lived model had on its SMB business was negligible.

The vendor had stayed tight-lipped on the reversal, which was announced at VMworld US in August, until yesterday, when it opened up about why it made the move and what impact it has had on partners.

The controversy arose when VMware imposed a 96GB memory cap on licences last year, causing vRAM licencing to be dubbed the "vtax."

Executives were keen to stress that the about-face was influenced by partner feedback.

Despite conceding that the move has gone down very well in the partner network, John Churchhouse, EMEA SMB director at VMware, told ChannelWeb that within the SMB space at least, the impact was "negligible".

Speaking at VMworld, Sam Routledge, solutions director at VMware partner Softcat, claimed that within his business, the vRAM changes had not had a huge impact.

"In our market, which is predominantly SMB, it was never so much of an issue... because our customers are not driving the infrastructure to that extent. It [the removal of the cap] was a great thing to do because it is now easy and simple. It was more a worry for the future and not an immediate concern for our customers," he added.

Churchhouse agreed with Routledge, claiming Softcat's sentiment can be applied across the whole of the SMB channel.

Churchhouse added: "You will find the odd [SMB] partner [who was affected heavily by vRAM], but we [in SMB] were not plagued with hundreds of complaints. Everyone welcomes it because it is now so simple."

During his keynote address, chief executive Pat Gelsinger elicited applause and cheering from the audience by referring to "the death of vRAM", and declared that the word had been removed from VMware's dictionary.