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The Broadcom VMware Fallout - How Voyager Cloud Is Helping NZ Businesses Regain Control
Authored by Deidre Steyn, Voyager’s Chief Executive Officer
Following Broadcom’s acquisition of VMware in late 2023 and the recent announcement of the VMware Advantage Partner Program closing on October 31, 2025, which will significantly reduce the number of authorized partners in the region, I’ve been approached by an unprecedented number of New Zealand businesses seeking guidance and alternatives.
The concerns I hear are consistent. Broadcom’s restructuring of VMware’s licensing model, combined with a more aggressive compliance and audit regime, has left many customers facing sudden, extraordinary cost increases and destabilising uncertainty. Several business owners have told me they invested heavily in perpetual licensing, only to find themselves forced onto costly, inflexible subscriptions with no guarantee of feature continuity or price stability.
They are not alone. It happened to us at Voyager. We had long operated a robust VMware and Veeam-based infrastructure to deliver our cloud and virtualisation services. But after Broadcom completed its VMware acquisition in December 2023, our licensing costs alone surged by 250 percent - a figure echoed by industry analysts and other providers. Several critical features we relied upon were also stripped away.
As a New Zealand business committed to protecting our customers from these kinds of shocks, we made a strategic decision: rather than pass these increases on, we invested in a significant transformation of our own infrastructure, migrating to Virtuozzo Hybrid Infrastructure alongside Acronis Cyber Protect for backup and disaster recovery. This migration was about more than cost. It was about protecting trust, transparency, and continuity of service for our customers.
Our Chief Information Security Officer, Todd Bryant has written a case study outlining our approach and rationale and has observed:
“Since migrating to the new servers, we’ve seen a noticeable drop in wait times for complex support requests. Customers have also shared overwhelmingly positive feedback, praising the platform’s speed and simplicity.”
Our customers noticed the difference immediately. Chris Parnell from SetSeed described the Voyager experience:
“What we’ve always enjoyed about Voyager is the ease and speed of deployment. It’s fast compared to logging into an AWS or Azure environment. Voyager has nailed that—a quick get up, fast and simple interface with plenty under the hood.”
Dan Fisher of RSM Hayes shared:
“Communication from the Managed Services Desk team throughout our recent migrations to VHI was outstanding. I was extremely pleased with how smoothly everything was managed.”
For Voyager, the results of our migration speak for themselves:
- 70% reduction in cluster maintenance effort
- 15% decrease in backup storage requirements
- Dramatically improved vendor support
- No need to pass Broadcom’s pricing shocks on to our customers
We recognise that every organisation’s needs are unique, and for some, remaining with VMware or exploring other global providers may be the right choice. However, for many New Zealand businesses, the combination of forced subscription models, significant price hikes, and intensified audits has created a scenario that is financially and operationally unsustainable.
At Voyager, we’ve proven that you can take control back. We did it ourselves, and we’re ready to help others do the same with a local, transparent, customer-focused approach that respects your investment and supports your future growth.
If you’re being forced down a VMware path you didn’t choose, or simply want to explore your options, we’re here to help. We’ve navigated these waters and emerged stronger, and we’re committed to helping other New Zealand businesses regain stability and confidence in their cloud journey.
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