Spinnaker Support will support VMware’s legacy vSphere platform ahead of Broadcom’s planned end of maintenance next month.

By continuing to provide support for vSphere 7, Spinnaker is responding to the increasingly strained relationship between VMware parent Broadcom and existing customers as the vendor's model shifts to subscription-based.

Broadcom said it would end general support for the virtualization platform on October 2 in favor of later subscription-based models such as vSphere 9, which was recently released through a choice of two bundles, VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) and VMware vSphere Foundation (VVF).

With the October deadline putting a stop to technical support, security patches, and updates, some existing customers have felt they were forced to either sign into the new model or find a new provider. One example, the Netherlands’ Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management (Rijkswaterstaat), went to court this year to ensure exit support from the vendor as it transitioned to a new virtual machine (VM) provider.

In its announcement, the Colorado-headquartered Spinnaker Support provided direct references to the Broadcom situation, with Shane O'Rourke, senior director of VMware Global Support Services, commenting: “Many of the customers I talk to are still running on version 7, often because it’s 'just working' and nobody wants to fix what isn’t broken.

“Broadcom is essentially telling customers, ‘Upgrade now or you’ll be left behind’ … [demonstrating] Broadcom’s attitude towards customers and ultimately forcing them to upgrade when they are happy with their current version.”

David McDougall, Spinnaker's chief revenue officer, added: “Since the Broadcom acquisition, ambiguity is the only thing we’ve been able to count on. Customers distrust the licensing changes, many outright reject the move to a subscription model, and most simply want to avoid getting caught in another round of sudden price hikes, changing terms, or forced upgrades driven by the vendor.

“VMware has unwittingly pushed many customers into running their environments unsupported. The decision to shed your support contract isn’t something anyone is doing without serious consideration, and many customers feel like they have no alternative in the face of the VMware changes. It’s critical that organizations know that there is an alternative support option available to them.”

Those options have increased in number in recent months, with vendors and system integrators such as Caylent, OVHcloud, and Platform9 joining the likes of Nutanix in offering exit options for VMware clientele.

Broadcom also faces competition from hyperscalers, with Gartner recently warning that VMware will lose 35% of workloads by 2028, as cloud giants such as Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud prove an attractive proposition for current clientele.

So far Broadcom has stood its ground on the changes, stressing in a recent earnings call that 87% of VMware's top 10,000 customers have signed up for bundles such as VCF.

Company CEO Hock Tan recently suggested it wasn’t worth Broadcom to target smaller customers with its new approach, potentially leaving Spinnaker Support and others to target the small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) market with their wares.