VMware ( … by Broadcom) went live this week with its controversial Advantage Partner Program that the vendor is hyping as a financial opportunity for resale partners, but some claim the program has introduced angst and uncertainty to a large number of past partners and enterprise customers.

The program itself was announced shortly after Broadcom closed on the VMware acquisition. Broadcom is touting the program as a way to simplify interactions between VMware and its customers.

Cindy Loyd, VP of global partners and commercial sales for VMware, noted in a blog post that the vendor last month sent out program invitations to more than 18,000 active VMware resell partners. An accompanying program FAQ explains that “active VMware resellers and value-added solution providers can expect to be invited into Broadcom Advantage at a tier that is equivalent to their VMware partner tier.”

Despite these measures, analysts have noted that many of those resellers are now scrambling.

“These partners are mad,” Tracy Woo, principal analyst at Forrester Research, told SDxCentral in an interview. “They’re mad because they’re partners and they weren’t given more notice than like a day or maybe just an email and that was it. That is very Broadcom style, it’s very matter of fact and we don’t make any apologies for it.”

Woo stated this move has in turn created concern for end users that have traditionally engaged with VMware products and services through those partner channels and are now deeply tied into the VMware ecosystem stack.

“I just talked to a client that wasn’t really impacted by the new partner program because it uses a partner that was accepted into the new program, but they are really worried about everything that is going on,” Woo said. “And that call was about how to create a business case to tell to their executives as to why they should be moving off of VMware and also they needed a list of alternatives.”

This notion is music to the ears of VMware rivals that for years have been attempting to breach what has been a very solid and long-standing connection between enterprises and VMware.

Bruce Kornfeld, who is currently chief marketing and product officer at StorMagic, but spent nine years at Dell (last as executive director of global alliances in 2012), explained that small- and mid-sized enterprises (SMEs) have relied heavily on VMware products and are now not sure what to do.

“Their concern is that they've built infrastructure. They've built all of their infrastructure around running applications using VMware,” Kornfeld said. “Microsoft has done a great job over the last few years with Azure and Azure stack, all their good products, but by far VMware has dominant market share. And if you talk to Forrester and IDC, they'll give you the numbers, but I would say 90%-plus of the market is still VMware. So customers are concerned because now they have all of their processes and procedures they know. Their people are trained on how to manage applications in a VMware environment. And now, the rug might be pulled from under them here and they are like ‘what am I going to do?’”

Kornfeld specifically cited concerns over alternative hypervisor options, with many looking at open-source versions like the Linux kernel-based virtual machine (KVM).

“No one's jumping today and saying, ‘I'm done with VMware, I'm going KVM,’ but there's definite interest,” Kornfeld said. “We're doing presentations. We're doing demos. We're showing customers that this is an alternative and it works just fine. They have to make the decision of can they handle it with their own people and their resources?”

Kornfeld added that StorMagic has been running channel webinars specifically targeted at resellers concerned by the VMware moves.

Both Woo and Kornfeld admitted that, to Broadcom’s credit, it is basically doing what it said it would do and what it has historically done when it has acquired another company.

“Broadcom is very clear, and I gotta give them credit, they're being very clear and very consistent on what's important to them, and what's important to them is the enterprise,” Kornfeld said. “They want big customers and they want to make as much money as they can from big customers all day long.”

Where Broadcom will generate that money is the part that is coming into focus. Woo noted that the vendor’s recent moves to simplify VMware’s offerings from “like 92 SKUs to two” does back that notion, but the reason VMware had so many to begin with was because it was providing a broad mix of options for a wide customer base.

“I don’t advise people to engage with VMware right now,” Woo said. “There’s too much that is in the air and from the stories that I have heard on how they have raised pricing on their contracts and given the message of ‘good luck trying to get out of the stack. It’s going to cost you a lot more to do that than to just pay this increase.’”