EU Commission Conditionally Approves Broadcom's $61 Billion Acquisition of VMware

[T0@st]

The European Commission has today announced that it has granted conditional approval—under EU Merger Regulation—for the $61 billion acquisition of VMware by Broadcom: "The approval is conditional upon full compliance with the commitments offered by Broadcom. Today's decision follows an in-depth investigation of the proposed acquisition. Broadcom is a hardware company that offers, among other products, Fibre Channel Host-Bus Adapters ('FC HBAs'), storage adapters and Network Interface Cards ('NICs'), which are hardware components that connect servers to storage or network. Broadcom has recently started expanding into software markets, mainly for security and mainframe applications. VMware is a software supplier offering mainly virtualization software that interoperates with a wide range of hardware, including FC HBAs, storage adapters and NICs.

A company spokesperson commented on the EU administration's conditional approval of the deal: "Broadcom provided the European Commission with a technology access remedy that preserves interoperability, a core principle that would not have changed as a result of this transaction...Broadcom did this to fully address the concerns expressed by the European Commission, and Broadcom welcomes the Commission's decision to accept this access remedy." The aforementioned "concerns" relate to the acquisition resulting in a possible restriction of "competition in the market for certain hardware components which interoperate with VMware's software." Broadcom is aiming to finalize their purchase of VMware by November 1, but they have to contend with forthcoming judgements from US and UK regulators prior to that date.



View at TechPowerUp Main Site | Source

 

[Guwapo77]

This is an interesting purchase. I really liked using VMware through college, I wonder if this will become proprietary to Broadcom's hardware...

 

[lemonadesoda]

The EU commission would love to fine a company (and get money money) for going exclusive/proprietary like that. That won't happen.

But for sure, "it works better on broadcom" could be the new catchline.

 

[chrcoluk]

Interesting, the only reason I can think of why they would be interested would be to increase use of their hardware by VMware customers, which would either be achieved by restrictions placed on supported hardware (something VMware has historically done) or promotion via VMware reps.

 

[AnarchoPrimitiv]

Consolidation of industries is progressing exponentially at this point

 

[Easo]

I am not exactly happy with this... Fellow sysadmins, seems, are not as well.