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Broadcom to acquire VMware for $61B

reuters.com

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Re: Broadcom to acquire VMware for $61B

#181

Post by yobbo »

hnarn wrote: post #170
yobbo wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but needs software to run its business In this case, they have no need for VMWare or Oracle. Actually, the parent comment is on to something. "Brand name" enterprise software is a buoy that certain types of careerists handcuff themselves to, which allows them to float through their careers fairly unchallenged. At one point in time, IBM had this market position. Then Microsoft, Oracle, and now Amazon and Google.

> Actually, the parent comment is on to something. "Brand name" enterprise software is a buoy that certain types of careerists handcuff themselves to Or maybe, just maybe, really big corporations that make software solutions are often really big because their solutions are, if not feature-wise the absolute best, by far the most stable and reliable? If one were to buy your argument, that would be like saying that busi…

People are now starting careers as Office 365 "officers". From now until retirement, they will champion Office 365 and its successors in all situations, because in effect they will be championing their own CVs.

Just like people did with IBM, Oracle, J2EE, and so on.

If at one point Google Apps is superior to Office 365 makes no difference.

The insight is that the careerists are the effective insider salesmen of enterprise software. Not specs, benchmarks, stats or anything like that.

Re: Broadcom to acquire VMware for $61B

#182

Post by amenod »

nimbius wrote: post #148
ghc wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just for a second, imagine a company that isn't a software company, but needs software to run its business. Think manufacturing, logistics, shipping, construction, food (industrial scale egg production, for example) etc. There's a lot of companies like that out there...in fact it's almost all of them. Those companies run all their boring, essential software (accounting, ERPs, etc.) on VMWare, Oracle, Azure, etc. Sinc…

but thats just it, this argument only ever works if you dont care about performance or features and believe the marketing. You make eggs, and your target fixation only allows you to see eggs, so these companies hold some mysterious value to you. KVM performance is orders of magnitude better than VMWare and handles migrations snapshots imports and exports without additional byzantine license agreements or mandatory mi…

I agree with you - and you are still missing the point. The enterprises are buying a service. They don't care that it is running on AHWRGGG instead of TLMWBBB (which is soooo much better). What they care about is that it runs, and when it doesn't, that someone fixes it. This is it. Could you run everything on PostgreSQL instead of Oracle? Yes, take a look at EnterpriseDB. I guess Oracle just sells better? (guessing here, no idea)

The money is of course important, but these providers are smart. They take only what they can and not more. Which is still big money. And while Oracle & co. would never make it into any company I can make a decision for, I don't think that keeps them awake at night - there are enough (big!) fish in the ocean.

Re: Broadcom to acquire VMware for $61B

#183

Post by treesknees »

nimbius wrote: post #148
ghc wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just for a second, imagine a company that isn't a software company, but needs software to run its business. Think manufacturing, logistics, shipping, construction, food (industrial scale egg production, for example) etc. There's a lot of companies like that out there...in fact it's almost all of them. Those companies run all their boring, essential software (accounting, ERPs, etc.) on VMWare, Oracle, Azure, etc. Sinc…

but thats just it, this argument only ever works if you dont care about performance or features and believe the marketing. You make eggs, and your target fixation only allows you to see eggs, so these companies hold some mysterious value to you. KVM performance is orders of magnitude better than VMWare and handles migrations snapshots imports and exports without additional byzantine license agreements or mandatory mi…

> KVM performance is orders of magnitude better than VMWare

Do you have any sources for this? I worked at a company developing NFV appliances, we always had much higher network throughput on VMware than we did using KVM without using some type of convoluted vswitch alternative or PCI passthrough.

VMware isn't just a hypervisor, it's an entire ecosystem of VM management and orchestration. You can tie it into AD, delegate different permissions and roles to users/groups, manage upgrades, interact with PowerShell and other APIs, it has integration into Dell and Cisco solutions, all sorts of additional features you won't find running CentOS and KVM without adding more 3rd party software on top and cobbling it together.

Re: Broadcom to acquire VMware for $61B

#184

Post by mfer »

squarefoot wrote: post #137
ghc wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just for a second, imagine a company that isn't a software company, but needs software to run its business. Think manufacturing, logistics, shipping, construction, food (industrial scale egg production, for example) etc. There's a lot of companies like that out there...in fact it's almost all of them. Those companies run all their boring, essential software (accounting, ERPs, etc.) on VMWare, Oracle, Azure, etc. Sinc…

> Why should enterprises deal with Linux directly? Not just Linux but IT in general. It may have to be about security; my impression is that at least some of the widespread successful attacks in recent years might have been prevented if non IT companies had their own IT department, servers and in house security teams. Relying on an external provider is cheap and comfortable, until the day a single vulnerability screw…

Having your own It department doesn't mean you'll be fine for security. Plenty of health systems have their own IT department and have been hit.

But, even thinking of health care systems is thinking of big businesses. How does a road construction company justify an IT department or security team? Think of businesses like that. They have have an IT guy who manages services they use and is an expert at using those.

Most businesses are small to medium in size and non-tech.

Re: Broadcom to acquire VMware for $61B

#185

Post by indymike »

ghc wrote: post #84
unabridged wrote: post #52

Enterprise software is such a mystery to me. I can't imagine any company ran by To me it just looks like older companies paying to keep from having to deal with Linux directly

Just for a second, imagine a company that isn't a software company, but needs software to run its business. Think manufacturing, logistics, shipping, construction, food (industrial scale egg production, for example) etc. There's a lot of companies like that out there...in fact it's almost all of them. Those companies run all their boring, essential software (accounting, ERPs, etc.) on VMWare, Oracle, Azure, etc. Sinc…

> Why should enterprises deal with Linux directly?

Um... perhaps because it is less costly and will lead to better capabilities, more reliability, less complexity than burying it under 18 layers of apis, containers, and virtual machines.

Re: Broadcom to acquire VMware for $61B

#186

Post by papito »

Apocryphon wrote: post #101
boeingUH60 wrote: post #10

Michael Dell will get $24bn! from this acquisition...It's fascinating how he turned around a struggling PC company (Dell Inc) into a financial engineering machine that made him tens of billions. https://www.forbes.com/sites/antoinegara/2021/04/18/how-wall...

So he Jack Welched his own corporation?

Jack Welch and his students turned companies into steaming piles of crap, not gold. GE, Boeing. A few people walk away with riches, however.

Re: Broadcom to acquire VMware for $61B

#187

Post by CameronNemo »

jka wrote: post #149

For anyone curious about potential open-source migration options given the prospect of uncertainty around VMware pricing and support: - xcp-ng[1] is a support-available fork of XenServer. Migration[2] can be performed using export to OVA format and subsequent import into the built-in Xen-Orchestra interface. - proxmox-ve[3] provides a management UI for Linux Virtual Machine (LVM) and Linux Containers (LXC) hosts and…

There is also Openstack, oVirt, and LXD (does KVM now).

Re: Broadcom to acquire VMware for $61B

#188

Post by upupandup »

ronnier wrote: post #113
formerly_proven wrote: post #3

Can we like... stop building these ginormous conglomerates? Thanks.

We can but asia won’t. We can stop and let Asian tech giants eat us alive.

really bizarre that you blame Asians when tech giants exist in other regions. Really didn't expect to see this dog whistling on HN.

Also are you talking about Israel or Bangladesh? They are in Asia too.

Re: Broadcom to acquire VMware for $61B

#189

Post by DANK_YACHT »

parkingrift wrote: post #174
ronnier wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can but asia won’t. We can stop and let Asian tech giants eat us alive.

You're saying "Asia" but you're really referring to China. There is no reason for the west to allow Chinese companies to compete in their markets. Reciprocal market access or no access at all. If western trade agreements forbid companies of a certain size from selling locally there is no alternative for Asian companies but to split or exit the market. We aren't helpless passengers on a worldwide economic joyride.

A lot of America's wealth comes from being competitive on a global scale. Google is popular not only in the U.S., but also in Europe and the rest of the Americas. Apple sells phones, computers, and service all over the world. People use these products because they're best-in-class. We may be able to protect the domestic market, but the international market will not be as forgiving.

Re: Broadcom to acquire VMware for $61B

#190

Post by teh64 »

yobbo wrote: post #140
jjice wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sounds like a tax for stupidity and laziness I pay a barber to cut my hair. Sure, I could learn how to cut my own hair, but there's a good chance I'll spend a lot of time and still mess it up. I pay a mechanic to fix my car for serious repair. Sure, I could learn how to replace a transmission, but there's a good chance I'll spend a lot of time and still mess it up. If these (and the endless examples of paying profe…

> I pay a barber to cut my hair. Meaningless analogy. Here some other meaningless analogies: Why would anyone ever own a frying pan? Not only do you need to rent a stove, you also need to hire a chef to cook with frying pan, you need a station with chefs that prep ingredients and so on. Just go to a restaurant. You pay a mechanic to fix your car? Why would anyone ever own a car when you can rent a car whenever you ne…

For the first two, there are definitely people how live like that, because of surprise tech companies like Uber making it possible.

Also literally everyone and every company relies on someone else to provide some services or hardware to enable people to do their job and live. Even this conversation could not even happen without other people making sure internet connections are kept stable. This whole "one person is an island" ideology is not something a lot of people subscribe to.

Some companies don't want to spend time doing software things that are not core to their business, so they pay other companies which sometimes do it better. Most definitely not always, but for some companies it would still be better than some in-house hodgepodge.

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