VMware bashing continued this week, with results from a Rimini Street survey suggesting 90% of respondents are looking to unstick from the long-standing virtual machine (VM) powerhouse due to soaring licensing costs.

Rimini Street surveyed 269 executives and IT decision-makers from VMware user organizations at the turn of the year, quizzing them on their current usage of the now Broadcom-owned platform.

The results found that revamped subscription packages and forced product bundling had caused frustration. While 90% said they were looking for a way out, almost half (48%) confirmed they do not plan to convert any of their VMware assets to VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) subscription within the next 12 months.

Cost savings were cited as the real driver behind wanting out of VMware; nearly three-quarters of respondents (73%) cited cost savings as their top priority at a time when firms are facing perspectives of paying much more than they were used to for newly bundle-based subscriptions.

Of those planning to leave, Rimini Street found VMware users shifting to non-VMware hypervisors will triple over the next three years, rising from 10% currently to 34%. In addition to cost cutting, just over half (54%) said the end of perpetual license support was a key reason to consider their options.

Despite wanting to leave, surveyed IT leaders cited barriers that may prevent them from jumping ship, including potential operational complexity (40%), multivendor management challenges (38%), and team skills requirements (37%). VMware has also made it slightly harder for folks wanting to jump ship by culling a software kit used by many of its rivals to migrate VMs to a different virtualization platform.

“The shift for current VMware users is not simply about replacing one vendor with another. It reflects a broader effort by enterprises to reduce dependency on a single provider, maintain continuity for mission-critical systems, and modernize at a pace that fits their own business requirements,” Joe McKendrick, lead analyst at Unisphere Research, noted as part of the Rimini Street survey. “For many organizations that means balancing support for existing environments with new investments designed to improve resilience, security, and scalability over time.”

Rimini Street's report is one of several published in the past year touting VMware exoduses.

Gartner late last month suggested more than half of enterprises will initiate proofs of concept to shift away from the Broadcom-owned business by 2029. Rivals like Nutanix, Red Hat, and even some hyperscalers are circling, wanting to snap up wantaway clients, though VMware remains unfazed, with more than 90% of its 10,000 largest customers having signed up to VCF in its first year, per CEO Hock Tan.

But rather than just vendors wanting out of VMware, Rimini Street's report suggests IT leaders were looking at multihypervisor strategies. Some 60% of respondents said they were already using or considering a multivendor approach, with just under half (47%) admitting to favor a hybrid IT virtualization option, bringing together hypervisors and containers for a best-of-both-worlds style deployment alternative.

“Organizations want more choice, flexibility, and control over their virtualization strategies,” Rimini Street COO Keith Costello explained. “Our suite of services for VMware helps clients reduce costs, strengthen security, improve support outcomes, and extend the value of their existing VMware investments – without being forced into disruptive timelines or one-size-fits-all vendor roadmaps. These survey findings reinforce the need for practical, vendor-independent strategies that put business priorities back on the client’s terms.”