Broadcom’s recent artificial intelligence (AI)-focused update to its long-standing VeloCloud SD-WAN platform included a new partner program change that continues Broadcom’s now year-long overhaul of VMware’s platform offerings, but also continues what has been broad upheaval for legacy VMware customers.

The new VeloCloud partner program – ambitiously titled “Titan” – replaces the legacy VMware VeloCloud Partner Program. It includes three program tiers with labels – Pinnacle, Premier, Registered – that Broadcom has been layering across the altered VMware partner program landscape.

Sanjay Uppal, VP and GM of Broadcom’s Software-Defined Edge division, explained in a press pre-briefing ahead of this week’s VMware Explore Barcelona event that the new VeloCloud program follows Broadcom’s stated push of simplified licensing portability.

“Previously, what we would say is, if you're a partner then you have to identify which end enterprise that you're providing these licenses to,” Uppal said. “With the new Titan partner program, that's going to be simplified so you can actually port licenses from one to another, not across geographies, but in the same geography.”

This aligns with license portability changes that have drawn considerable consternation from long-time VMware customers used to perpetual licenses.

Uppal also noted that the new program is also focused on simplifying service interactions with its networking products and services, like VeloCloud.

“The back and forth used to be for small numbers of edges, but we are now coalescing them together so that typically on monthly or quarterly boundaries we add it all together so that you have much easier way of transacting business with us at Velo than you would have in the past,” Uppal said.

The new Titan program also continues Broadcom tiered partner approach that provides better operational incentives to larger partners as opposed to smaller partners.

Growing Broadcom unrest across the networking space The partner program moves come as Broadcom’s overall VMware integration efforts continue to reverberate across the enterprise landscape.

A recent enterprise tracker survey and report from William Blair found “Broadcom’s acquisition of VMware continued to be disruptive for partners and customers alike in the third quarter, with egregious price increases prompting a rethinking of data center strategies and causing second-order effects on server/storage spending (we heard of storage deals being delayed as customers focus on consolidating VMware footprints).”

“While the vast majority of customers have ponied up with VMware at least for another year (due to immediate challenges in shifting off), many customers and channels feel burned by Broadcom,” the report noted, adding that this has led to disgruntled customers looking at near- to mid-term alternative offerings from vendors like Nutanix, Red Hat, Microsoft, Scale Computing, and public cloud providers.

However, the timing of those moves continues to be impacted by market dynamics.

Nutanix CEO Rajiv Ramaswami during a recent press question-and-answer session said that Broadcom has shown some price flexibility for some of its larger customers, which is extending potential customer churn timing.

“For their largest customers, Broadcom is going to try to be more flexible because they don’t want to lose those customers,” Ramaswami said. “Customers are generally not happy with the pricing, the approach of Broadcom has taken. It’s not a customer’s first mindset. I’d say it’s a Broadcom-first mindset. That’s really what’s triggering a lot of the angst among customers, and that’s why they’re coming to us and we are engaged with a lot of them.”

Ramaswami had previously noted that Broadcom was “stepping back on some of the things they’ve tried, so the competitive situation is quite dynamic on that front.”

Long-time VMware customer AT&T has been one of the more visible examples of this interaction. This includes the telecom giant slamming Broadcom as a “bully” in attempting to get AT&T to pay “a king’s ransom for subscriptions AT&T does not want or need, or risk widespread network outages that could cripple the operations of millions of AT&T customers worldwide, is precluded by the express terms of the parties’ written agreement.”

That disagreement is currently working through a cooling off period.

William Blair had previously noted that enterprise angst over the VMware pricing changes could see up to 30% of VMware’s installed base of more than 400,000 customers “will eventually switch away from VMware.”

Gartner in its latest ranking of the market’s top distributed hybrid cloud vendors ranked Broadcom in its “leaders” category, but added that pricing and license changes will result in half of enterprises over the next couple of years initiating “proofs of concept for alternative distributed hybrid infrastructure products to replace their VMware-based deployments and embrace hybrid cloud infrastructure delivery, up from 10% in 2024.”

Broadcom’s management for its part remains steadfast in its moves. CEO Hock Tan during the vendor’s second-quarter earnings call earlier this year said that it had signed up nearly 3,000 of its 10,000 largest customers to VMware’s new subscription licensing model.

He added that “each of these customers typically sign up to a multi-year contract,” which when spread across an annualized booking value increased from $1.2 billion during the first quarter of this year to $1.9 billion in its latest Q2.

“We’re making good progress,” Tan said of its move to sign legacy VMware customers to the new licensing model. “The journey is not over, by any means, but it’s very much to expectation moving to subscription.”