We're just going to call February “M&A Month.” MandA-uary?

With the exception of our third-place story on the University of Denver's decision to go with Nile's network-as-a-service (NaaS), February was dominated by news of the continued fallout after the Broadcom-VMware deal and potential issues from the upcoming HPE-Juniper Networks acquisition.

From Microsoft pledging to stand by VMware in our top story, to Dell terminating its post-VMware spinoff distribution agreement from 2021 in our fourth story, tongues were wagging. Then in between that, small and medium businesses realized they were no longer part of Broadcom's list of priorities for the new VMware and started scrambling to find alternatives.

For the HPE-Juniper deal, our readers were most interested in our analysis of the companies' networking and security portfolios, as well as the financial implications of the deal.

The following story rankings are based on unique visitors aggregated during the month.

Microsoft will continue to support its long-standing Azure VMware Solutions service, becoming the latest hyperscaler to throw its support behind VMware’s new operating model following recent moves by new parent company Broadcom.

“I am excited to continue this partnership with VMware by Broadcom,” Brett Tanzer, VP of product management for Microsoft Azure, explained in a blog post. “Our shared commitment to delivering Azure VMware Solution to customers is as strong as ever. We are actively working together to continue supporting our common customers, regardless of where they are on their cloud journey.”

VMware ( … by Broadcom) went live 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 University of Denver (DU) tapped Nile for its as-a-service approach to campus networking in recognition of the fact that networking is no longer the strategic differentiator it was in the past.

Modern networking is more similar to a utility-based model, DU Vice Chancellor and CIO Russell Kaurloto told SDxCentral. “While this change has dynamically occurred, the traditional network vendors are still mired in their ‘lifecycle’ replacement and maintenance fee cost model. Frankly, IT leaders are tired and frustrated of going to their boards asking for millions in capital expenditure to replace end-of-life network gear and then the project replacement and disruptions for a technology that has become a basic utility,” Kaurloto said.

Dell Technologies has terminated a distribution agreement with former subsidiary VMware just months after VMware was acquired by Broadcom. The move comes just ahead of the launch of a controversial new VMware partner program.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) CEO Antonio Neri and Juniper Networks‘ CEO Rami Rahim have nearly committed to Juniper Networks’ full product and service offering as part of HPE’s pending $14 billion acquisition of the networking firm. But they left themselves just enough wiggle room to back out of that if needed, which could cause concern for current enterprise customers.

With Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE)‘s pending $14B acquisition of Juniper Networks, one of the biggest questions surrounds product overlap.

During both investor as well as press and analyst calls when the acquisition was announced, HPE and Juniper executive leadership downplayed the issue of overlap. The reality, though, is that with decades of product and services development from both HPE and Juniper across the networking and security landscape, there are bound to be areas where both companies have offerings.

HPE CEO Antonio Neri and Juniper Networks CEO Rami Rahim have expressed their commitment to maintaining and enhancing the combined product and service offerings after the acquisition. They both said the goal of this acquisition is not to “eliminate products” from either portfolio but to “offer enhanced choice.”

VMware announced updates to its Edge Compute Stack (ECS), a move that mirrors the message of its new parent company Broadcom in providing new packaging and more integration.

VMware’s ECS is getting “underlying technology” upgrades to its hypervisor, container and hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) packaging. It will also gain new features from its Software Defined Edge (SDE) division that includes the new VMware Edge Cloud Orchestrator (VECO).

Broadcom is selling VMware’s End-User Computing (EUC) Division to KKR for $4 billion, continuing its efforts to shed what Broadcom CEO Hock Tan described as noncore VMware assets.

“Financially, this acquisition is a masterstroke for HPE,” The Futurum Group’s Ron Westfall and Steven Dickens, wrote in a blog post when the deal was announced. The duo added that  “it represents a robust investment into HPE’s future,” with financial expectations “contributing significantly to its operating income.”

However, HPE’s stock has lagged since the deal was announced.