Broadcom has pulled VMware vSphere Foundation (VVF) from parts of the EMEA market, in a move that may alienate smaller customers in the region.

The chip giant confirmed the news to The Register, adding that customers would need to check with their provider if the product remained available in their country.

The news comes days after Broadcom expanded its VMware partner refresh to EMEA in a bid to push small-sized European users toward its VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) platform.

Being enterprise-aimed, VCF is the more advanced affair out of it and VVF, with the latter more affordable for the smaller firms, which CEO Hock Tan recently suggested may not be worth Broadcom’s attention as it pivots VMware users toward its cloud subscription model.

One customer told The Register that they would likely need to jump ship to Microsoft’s Hyper-V offering or growing VMware rival Nutanix to avoid a price hike from about $130,000 to $1.3 million per annum.

The move follows a recent Gartner warning that VMware would lose 35% of workloads by 2028, as hyperscalers such as Microsoft would prove an attractive proposition for current customers.

Gartner research VP Julia Palmer added with her warning that Microsoft paid less attention to Hyper-V compared to its Azure cloud service. Microsoft also offers an on-premises offering in Azure Local, with a 16-host cluster limit that is better suited to smaller businesses than larger ones.

Nutanix meanwhile has crowed about the 640 or so VMware customers it absorbed in the last quarter – although migration challenges have hindered that momentum.

The challenger was recently positioned closest to VMware in the "Leaders" quadrant for Gartner’s distributed hybrid infrastructure (DHI) analysis.

Viva VSS(?)

VVF first emerged from the Broadcom acquisition last year, combining VMware’s compute, storage, and network virtualization with a container platform.

VCF has followed a similar timeline to become Broadcom’s flagship DHI offering, but still trailing behind the cheaper VMware vSphere Standard (VSS), a basic server virtualization package that reportedly constitutes 60% of Broadcom’s licenses.

“We have not announced any changes to the availability of vSphere Standard in EMEA nor end of support for vSphere Standard,” a Broadcom representative said. “The product remains fully available across EMEA today. However, Broadcom product availability can vary by region to align with local market requirements, customer demand, and other considerations.”