VMware Tanzu hones integration, but faces Broadcom backlash

VMware Tanzu AI tie-in draws skepticism

Broadcom touted Tanzu Platform 10 this week as a springboard for enterprises to rapidly develop generative AI applications. The product supports a variety of applications and programming languages, but it offers some advanced features, especially for Java environments that use the Spring programming framework.

"We are bringing the power of GenAI to Java developers through the integrated Spring AI experience," said Purnima Padmanabhan, general manager of the Tanzu division at Broadcom, during a press briefing last week. "With a built-in AI server that is there in Tanzu Platform, [users] can secure access to any models ... control the amount of model usage and the types of model usage [as well as] the privacy of data, and ... improve the accuracy and performance with the models that you choose, but also the databases that you choose."

Torsten Volk

The initial focus on integration with Java and Spring apps is likely to limit Tanzu Platform's appeal to the broader generative AI market for now, where most applications are developed using Python, said Torsten Volk, an analyst at TechTarget's Enterprise Strategy Group.

"If I was a Java developer and somebody could give me [this easy platform experience], I would be cheering," Volk said. "But data science is done in Python, not Java, and the argument for allowing Java developers to do data science without learning Python is not my favorite part of [the VMware/Broadcom] strategy."

Ongoing controversy over VMware by Broadcom's shifting relationship with AWS might also give developers pause about trusting Tanzu Platform as a truly neutral means to manage third-party AI and cloud infrastructure, Volk said.

"Having that message of commoditizing the public cloud ... is great for customers who are buying fully into the VMware universe," he said. "But most developers like all of the public cloud APIs that they can use, and they do not want to be locked in to VMware."

Tanzu's path forward unclear amid VMware exodus

Though Tanzu Platform doesn't require the other VMware license subscriptions that have drawn customer ire in the last eight months, some analysts believe it will be a casualty of an overall market migration away from VMware because of dramatic price increases under Broadcom -- some as high as 700%.

Naveen Chhabra

Forrester Research predicted 20% of VMware customers would "escape the VMware stack," in its October 2023 technology predictions report for 2024, which has been borne out so far, according to Naveen Chhabra, an analyst at the firm.

"Customers are not looking at product features right now," Chhabra said. "They are [ticked] off with all the major changes [Broadcom has] done ... Most customers are busy looking at, 'OK, how can I move away from VMware?'"

As a result, competitors for different components of the VMware platform will likely attract many small and midsize customers unable or unwilling to pay a new price premium, such as Nutanix for hyperconverged infrastructure, and IBM Red Hat OpenShift and SUSE Rancher for hybrid cloud developer platforms, according to a report by TheCube Research this month.

"It makes sense for certain-size customers that can manage the Broadcom tax so they don't have to change their infrastructure and operations workflows," TheCube's Strechay said. "[But] customers with applications that don't fit the return on investment will fall off ... It's accelerating the transition of VMware to being the next mainframe -- not dead, but not pervasive."

If you're a company with 10,000 virtual machines, [leaving VMware] is just not an option.

This is likely something Broadcom anticipated, according to Keith Townsend, president at The CTO Advisor, a Futurum Group company. Its strategy is to focus on VMware's largest customers who will be willing to pay a premium to continue to use its products rather than pay switching costs -- where there are even competitive products to switch to, he said.

"If you're a company with 10,000 virtual machines, [leaving VMware] is just not an option," Townsend said. "If you're deep in VMware NSX, for example, or using advanced features of the hypervisor, quite frankly, there's not anything that's really competing with all of those specific features. So you're kind of stuck."

That's true for the near future, Chhabra said, but he predicted that even "stuck" customers won't necessarily want to buy in further with VMware for cloud-native applications and AI.

"They're not going to expect those capabilities from VMware -- these initiatives are responsibilities of a different [buyer] for infrastructure," he said. "These two will not merge into one [buyer], saying, 'Hey, you know what? We get infrastructure from VMware. Let's get AI from VMware.'"

Keith Townsend

Townsend said he believes the opposite -- that the captive VMware audience of very large customers under Broadcom will also find expanding into its app modernization and AI infrastructure projects more feasible than integrating another new platform.

That will be enough for Broadcom to consider the acquisition successful, even if a higher volume of smaller customers leaves, he said.

"If you're managing [IT and human] resources, do you dedicate these resources to leading AI projects, which are revenue-generating and the highest priority of the board of directors, or do [you] put them on moving your infrastructure from VMware to something else?" Townsend said. "Even if it went off without a hitch, as a large enterprise, [you] might save a million dollars in VMware licensing, but lose a bigger opportunity in AI."

Beth Pariseau, senior news writer for TechTarget Editorial, is an award-winning veteran of IT journalism covering DevOps. Have a tip? Email her or reach out @PariseauTT.