Broadcom suspends VMware sales for one week to migrate SAP to Oracle

Customers will also lose the ability to set user permission, manage enterprise agreements, or purchase support between 30 April and 6 May

Broadcom is suspending all VMware sales and upgrades - along with nine other critical features - for a week so it can move VMware's SAP-based enterprise resource planning (ERP) system to an Oracle ERP system.

The move - which was announced via an update to VMware's knowledge base - is also stopping all user registrations and licenses management.

Customers will also lose the ability to set user permission, manage enterprise agreements and purchase support.

"To ensure a smooth transition and shutdown process, beginning at approximately 5:00pm PDT on Tuesday, 30 April, 2024, customers will only be able to perform a limited set of operations," according to the update.

"These features will no longer be available: user registration, license management, users/permissions, EA management, account management, success plans, subscription delivery platform (SDP), my funds, purchase or upgrade products, enrol in learning courses, purchase support incidents."

Broadcom has not responded to repeated calls and emails from CRN seeking comment.

One partner told CRN this is "not business-impacting."

Bob Venero, president of VMware partner Future Tech, based in Florida, praised VMware for shutting down the purchasing system during the ERP software cutover from SAP to Oracle.

"This is not business-impacting, it is business intelligence," said Venero.

"It is only five business days. An ERP transition is one of the most difficult things to do. Going from SAP to Oracle is a big move, and they are doing it the right way. I give them kudos for taking a pause rather than doing it in on the fly and continuing to try to take orders during the transition with two systems in place.

"Do you want six months of pain by doing it on the fly or a week with limited capabilities? Kudos to Broadcom for having the chutzpah to do that."

A sales leader for a top VMware partner, who did not want to be identified, said the shutdown is just one in a long line of issues that are elongating the sales cycle on all VMware deals.

"The Broadcom relationship at the field level isn't good," he said.

"The Broadcom account executives don't even have the answers on licenses or pricing because things are changing constantly. We can't get pricing. You can't even get an ELA renewal worth millions of dollars approved in a timely manner.

"That hurts us financially. Software companies get acquired all the time, but I have never seen anything like this in all my time in the channel."

Broadcom completed its $69bn takeover of VMware in November.

It terminated partner contracts in December but dangled the possibility of an invitation to join Broadcom's programme.

In January it announced that it would take the top 2,000 accounts direct and partners would lose their ability to register those deals.

Broadcom has also consolidated the product stack into a few offers that bundle products and changed VMware's pricing model so that customers pay per-core.

In some cases, customers have complained of sticker shock as well as finding their business stuck with expensive VMware infrastructure and sky-high renewal costs.

Gary McConnell, CEO of VirtuIT Systems, a New York-based VMware partner, said Broadcom could leverage this into a go-to-market motion.

"I expect them to use it as a selling tactic prior to that week of, ‘Book now or your renewal will be out of date,'" he said.