TL;DRTesco is migrating 40,000 servers off VMware and suing Broadcom for GBP 100M+. It says Broadcom hiked prices 175% and killed perpetual license support.
Tesco, one of Britain’s largest supermarkets, is migrating approximately 40,000 servers away from VMware. It is also suing Broadcom in the UK High Court for more than GBP 100 million, accusing the company of “abusive conduct.” It is one of the largest publicly disclosed VMware migrations since Broadcom completed its acquisition of VMware in late 2023.
Tesco purchased perpetual VMware licenses in 2021 with support and software updates until 2026, plus an option to extend for another four years. After Broadcom took over, Tesco says it faced price hikes of around 175% and was forced into more expensive subscription bundles. Broadcom refused to continue standalone support for the perpetual licenses Tesco had already paid for.
“Faced with Broadcom’s abusive conduct, and given the criticality of virtualization and mainframe software and services to its business, Tesco has been forced to incur material costs to procure alternative solutions with reduced functionality,” the filing reads. The company has hired third-party support providers to maintain its VMware environment while it migrates.
