Broadcom Announces VMware Workstation/Fusion Now Completely Free for Commercial Use, Discontinuing Licenses

Broadcom's latest move has been met with mixed reactions, initially drawing complaints and then surprise from the community. Previously, Broadcom faced backlash for shifting VMware products from perpetual licenses to subscription models. However, Broadcom then announced that VMware Workstation Pro would be made free for personal users.

Although making VMware Workstation Pro free for personal users wasn't enough to satisfy everyone, it did soften the general attitude towards Broadcom among the public, while businesses continued to express their grievances.

Earlier, Landian.news reported that Broadcom was considering migrating VMware Workstation from a proprietary infrastructure to the open-source KVM, a move that puzzled many. But now, the reason behind Broadcom's strategy is clear.

Today, Broadcom declared that VMware Workstation and VMware Fusion will be offered free of charge to all users, whether for personal or commercial use. Effective immediately, the paid licenses for these products have been discontinued, and there will no longer be a service for purchasing them. (Note: While the paid licenses are discontinued, all VMware products still come with a license agreement, which means users must agree to this agreement to use the products.)

For businesses that have already purchased licenses, Broadcom will continue to provide full technical support until those licenses expire, assisting customers with any issues during the validity period of their licenses.

So, why the shift towards KVM? Since VMware Workstation is no longer a revenue-generating tool, it makes no sense for Broadcom to continue developing its own proprietary technology. Utilizing the open-source KVM is more efficient and cost-effective.

Going forward, Broadcom will offer technical support for these two products through support documentation and community Q&As, but will no longer provide dedicated technical support for businesses. After all, providing engineer support for free products is not very feasible.

However, it's important to remember that VMware Workstation is not the primary product used by enterprises. Other VMware products will continue as subscription-based, leading many businesses to announce plans to migrate away from VMware products.