Former VMware customers are receiving audit letters from Broadcom.

According to a report from Ars Technica, the latest installment in the Broadcom and VMware community drama has seen Broadcom follow through on a warning of possible audits, as made in cease-and-desist letters it sent earlier this year.

The report points to an anonymous software provider and VMware user in the Netherlands that had “been selected for a formal audit of its use of VMware software and support services”, according to a letter dated June 20.

The letter informs that an auditing firm would be performing a review of the company’s VMware deployment and entitlements, possibly including fieldwork or remote testing. There is also the suggestion of meetings between the firm and staff from accounting, licensing, and IT functions.

Broadcom and VMware woes

The audit letters are the latest salvo in the increasingly fractious relationship between Broadcom and VMware users since the former bought the latter for $69 billion in 2023.

Since then, Broadcom has put a stop to selling perpetual VMware licenses in favor of recurring license fees. Some users have reported price increases of 300 percent or more.

Broadcom this year began sending cease-and-desist letters instructing non-renewing customers to stop using any releases, updates, and most security patches that occurred after their support contract ended.

Ironically, the client mentioned in the Ars Technica report did not receive one of these initial letters.

While Broadcom is well within its rights to conduct audits, the optics aren’t good, much like a messy breakup in which one party bills the other for deciding to part ways.

Broadcom itself appears less than sympathetic, and in a recent earnings call stressed that 87 percent of VMware's top 10,000 customers have signed up for bundles such as VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF). Broadcom notes that those customers are finding the purchase pays for itself in deriving value from previously unused bundle components.