T-Mobile moving tens of thousands of virtual machines off VMware amid lawsuit

T-Mobile is migrating tens of thousands of virtual machines away from VMware, a widely used platform that lets companies run multiple virtual servers on a single physical machine (a core technology in modern data centers). This follows Broadcom's $69 billion acquisition of VMware in 2023, after which Broadcom abruptly stopped selling perpetual licenses, hiked subscription prices 2-5x, and laid off thousands of VMware employees. Many large customers are now seeking alternatives. T-Mobile is also locked in a legal dispute with Broadcom over VMware's licensing and pricing terms. The migration is significant both for its scale and because T-Mobile was one of VMware's largest customers, signaling potential further erosion of VMware's enterprise base. Competitors like Nutanix, Microsoft Azure VMware Solution, and open-source alternatives (e.g., Proxmox, Red Hat OpenShift) are vying to absorb the exodus.