The most annoying thing isn’t even the price hikes or the direct sales - it’s the ambiguity they’ve introduced into things. “Hey we need pricing for xyz”. “Ya, we’re not sure if we’re going to quote that”. Like wtf? We’re a middleman who has deployed VMware on our systems for decades mostly because that’s what end users want - but it doesn’t matter to us, we can deploy in other options easily enough.

But like - It’s like quote it or take the account - but the customer has a project and you won’t make up your mind. Seriously, we have quotes stuck in pergatory for over 6 months, yet they won’t call the end user and sell direct. Customers literally can’t buy VMware even if they are ok with a 1000x cost - and they wonder why people are moving on.

Budgeting season is sept-Dec. I think everyone I know is kicking off a migration project for 2025 to another platform - mostly because they can’t get a quote/licenses. VMware is screwed and it’s only just begun.