Brussels, 22nd May 2025. The European Cloud Competition Observatory (ECCO) today published a new report on Broadcom. ECCO’s role includes highlighting ongoing or new unfair software licensing practices from any software vendors in the cloud sector. As such, it has already published one report critical of Broadcom’s changes to licensing practices following its acquisition of VMware in November 2023.
This second report finds that Broadcom’s wide ranging and brutal imposition of unfair contract terms for cloud infrastructure service provides continue unabated. Although many CISPE members, along with most of the sector, have reluctantly signed new contracts for VMware software, they have done so because there were no alternatives.
Recent developments indicate Broadcom’s increasingly litigious approach to its partners and customers and a further amplification of anti-competitive actions. A single meeting has taken place between CISPE and Broadcom, but no progress was made. Consequently, ECCO welcome’s the decision by German IT customer association, VOICE, to file a formal competition complaint against Broadcom with the European Commission.
This ECCO report not only restates the Red status for Broadcom and calls for urgent official investigations, but outlines a set of minimum requirements necessary to reset competition in this vital aspect of Europe’s cloud economy.
Francisco Mingorance, secretary general of CISPE, comments:
“Unlike Microsoft, Broadcom shows no interest in finding solutions, or even of working with European cloud infrastructure providers. Broadcom can report that most have signed new contracts, but we know that these are punitive and threaten the viability of service providers locked-in to the VMware ecosystem. Urgent action is needed.”
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All ECCO reports are available on cispe.cloud/ecco. For further information please contact:
Ben Maynard
CISPE Director of Communications
+44 (0)7968 537982