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In my experience, VMWare attempts to force this model on everyone using tactics like not giving quotes until the very last minute, forcing buyers into a "take it or leave it" decision.. thinking (rightly so) that it will work in their favor most of the time.

It takes a lot of balls for a company to "leave it" right as their contract is expiring, and speaks to talent and experience on the customer side to be able to stand up to bullying, and be able to pull off such a large migration.



But it's also a great negotiating tactic for the buyer not the seller. This seller has been chasing this buyer for however much time, and then at the last second walks away from the deal. I've had the price of a car drop drastically by doing this. I can't imagine a software sales person and its managers not budging and just letting the deal walk away either.


But it's highly unlikely the buyer will walk away if their core business already depends on the product you licensed to them


Now that there's a high profile example of it happening, though, it might become both more common and more of a negotiation tool for customers. This company has shown that it can be done, and now both Broadcomm and their customers know it, and each knows that the other knows it.

Sure, it's still a lot of effort, but, at this point, even if Broadcomm can get somebody to sign up for another year, that gives the customer a year to plan on how to jump ship next time around. And it looks like the number of people with expertise on migrating from VMWare is skyrocketing, so companies should be able to hire a team to do it...




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