Dive Brief:
- Broadcom unveiled plans to create an open ecosystem for VMware Cloud Foundation, broadening customer access to preferred private clouds, according to a Wednesday announcement.
- VCF will adapt across different infrastructure layers, increasing customers’ ability to use preferred data center and edge hardware for on-premises and private cloud environments, the company said.
- “By fostering an open VCF ecosystem, we’re empowering businesses to build modern private clouds that align with their strategic needs, ensuring they can leverage the technologies required for their unique environments,” Paul Turner, chief product officer of the VCF division at Broadcom, said in the announcement.
Dive Insight:
Broadcom’s move toward an open ecosystem lacks clarity on how VCF components will be driven by community innovation, one analyst said.
“Broadcom is calling it open ecosystem; it is little to no different from certification programs VMware used to run,” Forrester Principal Analyst Naveen Chhabra said in an email to CIO Dive. “This could be perceived as ‘open ecosystem’ marketing rather than genuine open-source-first philosophy.”
As part of the slew of changes, the company said it’s expanding its open hardware certification program aimed at increasing original equipment manufacturer and original design manufacturer participation through new VCF AI ReadyNodes, ODM self-service certification and new edge systems support, according to the Wednesday announcement.
VCF AI ReadyNodes is an open certification process, and OEM partner Supermicro will be one of the first to certify its GPU systems under the program, the announcement said. Supermicro is an IT vendor providing GPU servers and other hardware.
The announcement leans heavily on these multi-vendor partnerships with companies, including Supermicro, Cisco and Intel, to support the VMware stack over community-driven innovation, Chhabra said.
Companies that plan to renew with VCF will need certified hardware upon the next gear refresh cycle in three to five years, Chhabra said. Refreshing uncertified hardware components could lead to certification and integration challenges, “hence this open certification program.”
Broadcom acquired VMware in 2023 for $61 billion, setting the stage for tumultuous change to products and pricing for enterprises. Roughly 80% of enterprises used VMware infrastructure products at the time of the acquisition.
The company has entered phase two of its VMware consolidation, with more than 90% of VMware’s largest 10,000 customers having shifted to the VCF private cloud bundle, Broadcom CEO Hock Tan said during a September Q3 2025 earnings call.
The company reported a total revenue increase of 22% year over year to $16 billion in Q3 2025. Broadcom doesn’t report VMware revenue separately, but Tan identified it as a growth driver during the call.
