Broadcom's controversial deal to acquire network virtualization company VMware will not be closing tomorrow as hoped but is still set to “close soon.”

Networking giant Broadcom today released a statement admitting that the deal’s close is not going to hit its long-standing deadline of before the end of the vendor’s third-fiscal quarter, which is October 31. Instead, the deal is now slated to close “prior to the expiration of their merger agreement,” which is November 26.

In today’s statement, Broadcom again stated the laundry list of countries and regions that have legally approved the deal, including Australia, Brazil, Canada, the European Union (EU), Israel, Japan, South Africa, South Korea, Taiwan and the United Kingdom. It also stated the deal has received “foreign investment control clearance in all necessary jurisdictions,” and that “there is no legal impediment to closing under U.S. merger regulations.”

That last note is tied to ongoing negotiations between Broadcom and U.S. regulators tied to the deal. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) had previously charged Broadcom with monopolizing the market on semiconductor components, which were settled in late 2021.

The one country missing from Broadcom’s list is China, which according to the Financial Times is holding up the deal due to ongoing geopolitical tension with the United States. That tension is reportedly tied to the U.S. government’s tightening China’s access to semiconductor technology.

Broadcom’s position between the U.S. and China is not a new one for the network vendor as it was previously thwarted from acquiring U.S.-based chip giant Qualcomm due to Broadcom’s connections to China. Broadcom attempted to bolster that deal by moving its headquarters from Singapore to the United States.

Mauricio Sanchez, senior director of enterprise security and networking research at Dell’Oro Group, told SDxCentral that the delay is not ideal for all involved, but not yet a significant concern.

“The longer this goes on the more painful for the customers and shareholders in the companies,” Sanchez said, adding that the potential holdup tied to China’s approval does add to the uncertainty. “They don't tend to be very transparent about their timelines, so, on the one hand, it's good that they've gotten this far, but, on the other, it's unfortunate that they're stuck behind an approval.”

In terms of shareholders, Broadcom and VMware last week did tout a deadline of October 23 for VMware shareholders to decide how they want to be compensated if the deal closes. Holders of a vast majority of those VMware shares (96%) decided to receive Broadcom stock with the remainder wanting to cash out.

The bigger concern could be for VMware customers. Analysts have repeatedly cited Broadcom’s historical treatment of customers picked up through its various acquisitions as likely a catalyst for current VMware customers to jump ship, which is something many of VMware’s competitors have said is a reality. This includes competitors in the cloud, hybrid cloud, hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) and enterprise network market.

Sanchez tamped down those ongoing concerns a bit, noting that while customers have likely jumped ship since this deal was initially announced early last year, a potential one-month delay is not likely to impact those that have stuck around.

“I think if it closes here within the month, which is kind of the next goal posts that seems to be coming into view, it's probably alright for the customers because customers who have already jumped ship probably did so some time ago because this is not the first resetting of the goalposts,” Sanchez said. “It may be more like ‘oh, here we go again,’ and customers that have stuck around I wouldn’t expect to jump ship here or in November at the very least. If things drag out and Broadcom continues to pursue this into the new year, then I think that'd be a very different picture.”