On November 4, 2026, Broadcom announced vSphere Express, a standalone VMware virtualization package capped at 128 CPU cores and made available in all regions.
The release marks a sharp shift for a company that spent three years pushing customers toward expensive bundles following its acquisition.
Ever since Broadcom took over, VMware has pivoted away from its past emphasis on streamlined, entry-level virtualization tools and turned its attention primarily toward large enterprises. This change in direction has shown up as the major technology company trimmed its network of channel partners, condensed its software offerings into a handful of pricey SKUs, and scrapped plans to sell directly to its largest accounts.
Although Broadcom’s tenure has brought strong financial results to VMware, the introduction of vSphere Express hints that Broadcom might be anxious about bleeding accounts among smaller clients, while also signaling more broadly that its recent strategy is driving enterprises of all sizes to look at alternative options.
In September, while teasing what would become vSphere Express, Paul Turner, VCF’s chief product officer, told The Register that Broadcom issued sales incentives that pushed its sales team to sell VCF. He said that VMware had “too big a focus on VCF.”
Nick Watson, chief technologist at UK-based tech advisory firm C4C Group, told TechTarget on November 4, 2026: “My reading is that Express exists because customers looked at VCF, did the sums, and started packing. This is Broadcom putting a door back on the building.”
Migrating off VMware can be very costly and time-consuming, making matters particularly complicated for SMBs. For organizations that can’t currently juggle a migration alongside other projects and/or have limited resources, vSphere Express can be a much simpler and more easily attainable solution than changing virtualization platforms.
Some SMBs, though, including firms that have already migrated to VMware rivals and firms whose preferred resellers no longer work with VMware, will be much harder to sway. No thanks. We have two more locations to migrate off VMware and we’re done with this nightmare. “Not playing these games,” a Reddit user said last week in response to details shared about vSphere Express.
Speaking with Ars Technica in September 2026, Dean Colpitts, CTO of Canadian managed services provider and former VMware partner Members IT Group, said that even though migrating to the new low-end virtualization offering may be easy, Broadcom has “already shown both customers and partners they can’t be trusted.”
A second change arrived in the same November 4, 2026 VMware blog post. TechTarget reported that in the European Economic Area, vSphere Standard 8 and Enterprise Plus 8 stay on sale until October 31, 2027. Active subscriptions include Extended Support until the subscription ends or October 31, 2028, whichever comes first.
