Hewlett Packard Enterprise Entices VMware Users with Free Virtualization Software
An anonymous reader highlights a report from Ars Technica, showcasing Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s (HPE) strategic move to lure VMware users through a compelling offer. During the HPE Discover event in Las Vegas, HPE unveiled a new initiative that grants customers access to its “HPE Morpheus Software – VM Essentials” free of charge for up to one year, as per the company’s press release. This initiative is particularly enticing for end users and resellers dissatisfied with the recent pricing changes made by Broadcom for VMware products.
HPE’s Alternative to VMware
HPE describes its virtualization platform as a comprehensive alternative to VMware, featuring a hardware virtual machine (HVM) hypervisor and unified management capabilities. This allows users to manage VMware ESXi and HVM clusters from a single console and migrate at their convenience. The promotion includes up to one year of free VM Essentials licenses, one year of HPE Zerto for $1 to facilitate seamless migration to HPE virtual machines, and 0% interest on software through HPE Financial Services.
The promotional offer is financially attractive when compared to Broadcom’s pricing strategy for VMware vSphere, which has seen significant price hikes following the removal of perpetual licenses and product bundling into costlier packages. HPE typically charges $600 per CPU socket per year for VM Essentials, whereas Broadcom controversially charges on a per-core basis.
Channel Partners and Market Impact
HPE’s promotional strategy also extends to its channel partners. From March 1 to June 30, HPE offered a free year of VM Essentials via a discount to customers purchasing an AMD server alongside a one-year VM Essentials license. This approach contrasts with Broadcom’s strategy of reducing the number of VMware product resellers. HPE’s promotion seeks to motivate customers to consider migrating away from VMware.
Additionally, HPE announced that it would provide 600 reseller partners who achieve the Private Cloud with Virtualization competency from the HPE Partner Program free licenses of VM Essentials software for three years by the end of the year, although partners are still responsible for support fees.
Dean Colpitts, CTO of Canadian managed services provider (MSP) IT Group (MITG), which was removed from VMware’s reseller program after 19 years, sees this as a positive step. However, he criticizes the limitation to 600 partners as “very short-sighted” and advocates for broader distribution to facilitate adoption and displacement of competitors.
As HPE aims to attract independent software vendors (ISVs) and increase adoption of its virtualization software, its comprehensive strategy appears designed to offer a viable alternative to VMware at a competitive price point.
For more details, you can read the full report Here.
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