“Trust, not features, is the real deficit”: VMware tries to appease SMBs
“Trust, not features, is the real deficit”: VMware tries to appease SMBs
“信任而非功能才是真正的赤字”：VMware 试图安抚中小企业
For many small-to-medium-sized businesses (SMBs), VMware has become too expensive. Broadcom’s acquisition of the virtualization firm brought the end of perpetual license sales and the arrival of pricey, stacked, subscription-based bundles that priced out many SMBs. 对于许多中小型企业（SMB）而言，VMware 已经变得过于昂贵。博通（Broadcom）对这家虚拟化公司的收购终结了永久许可证的销售，取而代之的是昂贵、捆绑式的订阅服务，这使得许多中小企业望而却步。
The most obvious is VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF), VMware’s flagship private cloud bundle that has been Broadcom’s primary focus since taking over VMware. Many SMBs find that VCF is unaffordable and stuffed with unnecessary offerings. However, numerous customers have reported online that VMware sales representatives have still pushed them toward VCF, with some claiming that sales reps have told them that the lower-priced edition of VMware’s virtualization platform, vSphere Standard, was no longer available. 最明显的例子是 VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF)，这是 VMware 的旗舰私有云套件，也是博通接管 VMware 后关注的重点。许多中小企业发现 VCF 价格高昂且充斥着不必要的功能。然而，许多客户在网上反映，VMware 的销售代表仍在向他们推销 VCF，甚至有人声称销售代表告诉他们，VMware 虚拟化平台的低价版本 vSphere Standard 已经不再提供。
Speaking with The Register this week, Paul Turner, VCF’s chief product officer, said Broadcom’s new sales incentives encouraged the sales team to push VCF. “We corrected this,” Turner told the publication. He admitted that sometimes VMware had “too big a focus on VCF.” 本周在接受《The Register》采访时，VCF 首席产品官 Paul Turner 表示，博通新的销售激励措施鼓励销售团队推广 VCF。“我们已经纠正了这一点，”Turner 对该媒体表示。他承认，有时 VMware “对 VCF 的关注度过高了”。
vSphere Standard update
vSphere Standard 更新
VMware will release an “updated version” of vSphere Standard “soon,” The Register reported. More information will likely come in October during VMware’s Explore conference in Frankfurt, Ram Velaga, president of Broadcom’s Infrastructure Software Group, told The Register. VMware hasn’t updated vSphere Standard since 2022 despite an updated version of vSphere arriving with VCF 9 in 2025. This was because, Turner said, VMware was prioritizing improving VCF’s security. 据《The Register》报道，VMware 将“很快”发布 vSphere Standard 的“更新版本”。博通基础设施软件集团总裁 Ram Velaga 告诉《The Register》，更多信息可能会在 10 月于法兰克福举行的 VMware Explore 大会上公布。尽管 2025 年随 VCF 9 推出了新版 vSphere，但 VMware 自 2022 年以来一直未更新 vSphere Standard。Turner 表示，这是因为 VMware 当时优先考虑提升 VCF 的安全性。
Velaga said that VMware prioritized VCF in an effort to promote private clouds as a more affordable alternative to the public cloud, which are easier to manage. “People could get distracted” if VMware introduced a low-end virtualization product then, the executive said. Velaga 表示，VMware 优先考虑 VCF 是为了推广私有云，将其作为比公有云更经济、更易于管理的替代方案。这位高管称，如果当时 VMware 引入低端虚拟化产品，“人们可能会分心”。
Broken trust
信任破裂
Dean Colpitts, CTO of Canadian managed services provider Members IT Group (MITG), which VMware cut from its reseller program after 19 years of partnership last year, told Ars that MITG is not doing any VMware business now and won’t in the future. “Broadcom has burned all the bridges. While it may be easier to migrate to whatever this new [vSphere] Standard release is from vSphere 8, they have already shown both customers and [channel] partners they can’t be trusted,” he told Ars Technica. 加拿大托管服务提供商 Members IT Group (MITG) 的首席技术官 Dean Colpitts 告诉 Ars，MITG 目前没有任何 VMware 业务，未来也不会有。去年，VMware 在双方合作 19 年后将 MITG 从其经销商计划中剔除。他告诉 Ars Technica：“博通已经烧毁了所有的桥梁。虽然从 vSphere 8 迁移到这个新的 [vSphere] Standard 版本可能更容易，但他们已经向客户和渠道合作伙伴证明了他们是不可信的。”
You can find similar sentiments about trust in online discussions about VMware’s announcement. “Too little, too late. We’ve moved on,” a Reddit user named bakonpie wrote about the upcoming update. 在关于 VMware 公告的在线讨论中，可以发现类似的关于信任的观点。一位名为 bakonpie 的 Reddit 用户在评论即将到来的更新时写道：“太少，太迟了。我们已经向前看了。”
Broadcom’s stated interest in smaller sales comes as VMware rivals are openly vying for disgruntled VMware users, especially those that are SMBs. “An updated vSphere Standard signals Broadcom heard the market, but three years of neglect, quote refusals, and VCF-only sales tactics have already pushed many SMBs toward Nutanix, Proxmox, and [Microsoft] Hyper-V,” Sumit Bhatia, co-author of the book Navigating VMware Turmoil in the Broadcom Era, told Ars. 博通声称对小型销售感兴趣之际，VMware 的竞争对手们正公开争夺那些不满的 VMware 用户，尤其是中小企业。书籍《在博通时代驾驭 VMware 动荡》（Navigating VMware Turmoil in the Broadcom Era）的合著者 Sumit Bhatia 告诉 Ars：“更新后的 vSphere Standard 表明博通听到了市场的声音，但三年的忽视、拒绝报价以及‘只推 VCF’的销售策略已经将许多中小企业推向了 Nutanix、Proxmox 和 [微软] Hyper-V。”
“Trust, not features, is the real deficit. Broadcom must prove sustained commitment—stable pricing, reliable renewals, and real investment—before SMBs treat vSphere Standard as safe again.” “信任而非功能才是真正的赤字。博通必须证明其持续的承诺——稳定的定价、可靠的续订和真正的投入——中小企业才会再次认为 vSphere Standard 是安全的。”
A vSphere Standard update would need “predictable, published pricing with no surprise renewal spikes; a genuine capped-term or perpetual-style license option; core features, like [vSphere] vMotion, [vSphere High Availability], and backup integration without upsell gates; simplified per-socket licensing instead of per-core minimums built for hyperscale environments,” Bhatia said. “VMware’s biggest challenge is convincing a burned market that Broadcom won’t repeat the bait-and-switch once switching costs make customers captive again,” he added. Bhatia 表示，vSphere Standard 的更新需要“可预测的公开定价，且没有意外的续订涨价；真正的限期或永久式许可证选项；核心功能（如 vMotion、高可用性及备份集成）且没有追加销售门槛；简化的按插槽（per-socket）许可，而不是为超大规模环境设计的按核心（per-core）最低限额”。他补充道：“VMware 面临的最大挑战是说服一个受过伤害的市场，即一旦转换成本再次将客户锁定，博通不会重演‘诱饵与切换’（bait-and-switch）的把戏。”
It’s unclear how important SMBs truly are to Broadcom’s overall goals. The conglomerate’s software business has thrived since its VMware takeover and made $8.75 billion in revenue (a 29 percent year-over-year increase) in fiscal Q3 2026. Still, if Broadcom puts an effort into making vSphere Standard more appealing and, critically, accessible again, it could make some SMBs more comfortable sticking with VMware instead of spending time and money determining how to properly migrate. 目前尚不清楚中小企业对博通的整体目标到底有多重要。自收购 VMware 以来，该集团的软件业务蓬勃发展，2026 财年第三季度实现营收 87.5 亿美元（同比增长 29%）。尽管如此，如果博通努力让 vSphere Standard 变得更具吸引力，且关键是让其再次变得易于获取，这可能会让一些中小企业更愿意继续使用 VMware，而不是花费时间和金钱去研究如何进行迁移。