The competition between Nutanix and VMware has entered a new phase as customer migrations accelerate in the wake of Broadcom’s acquisition of VMware.
At its .NEXT event, CEO Rajiv Ramaswami confirmed that Nutanix’s customer base has grown to more than 30,000 globally.
This is no longer an isolated set of customer decisions — it signals a clear market shift.
Migration happening in multiple waves
Ramaswami describes the move away from VMware unfolding in three distinct phases.
The first wave included organizations that acted quickly after the Broadcom deal closed. These customers wanted to avoid anticipated changes to licensing and pricing and chose to migrate ahead of renewal cycles. Several large enterprises completed full migrations within a year.
The second wave consists of customers who initially waited. They renewed contracts while watching developments closely, and many are now planning or executing migrations ahead of their next contract period. This phase is ongoing and expanding rapidly.
The third wave is expected to be the largest. It will be driven by rising costs, declining trust and strategic platform choices. Ramaswami says this shift will unfold gradually over several years rather than overnight.
Nutanix targets more than half of VMware’s customer base
VMware is estimated to have roughly 300,000 customers worldwide. Nutanix is now targeting about 165,000 of those organizations.
This is not opportunistic growth; it reflects a deliberate strategy to capture market share in virtualization and hyperconverged infrastructure.
Analysts estimate that more than 100,000 VMware customers could eventually leave the platform, particularly in the mid-market where migration barriers are lower. At the same time, Nutanix is seeing growing interest from larger enterprises, often through staged implementations that expand over time.
Broadcom defends VMware’s role in tomorrow’s datacenter
Broadcom leadership, including Hock Tan, emphasizes stability in VMware’s business.
Broadcom highlights that more than 90 percent of VMware’s top 10,000 customers have renewed their agreements. The company continues to invest in VMware Cloud Foundation, positioning it as a core layer for modern datacenters.
Their strategy positions VMware as a foundational platform to manage large-scale generative and agent-driven AI workloads.
The real drivers behind the shift
Migration away from VMware is not driven by a single cause but by a combination of market changes.
Cost is becoming clearer for many organizations, prompting a reassessment of total cost of ownership. At the same time, uncertainty about the vendor’s long-term direction after Broadcom’s takeover has increased.
Concurrently, the need for flexibility across hybrid and multicloud environments is rising, causing more companies to reconsider traditional virtualization platforms.
For many organizations, VMware is no longer the default long-term choice.
Swedish and Nordic companies should evaluate their VMware environments to compare cost, flexibility and risk. For managed service providers (MSPs) in the region, the migration wave represents an opportunity to offer advisory, implementation and operational services around hyperconverged infrastructure, hybrid cloud and datacenter modernization.
Risks include migration complexity, skills gaps and existing dependencies. Opportunities include potentially lower operating costs, modernized architectures, greater control over infrastructure and stronger positioning for future AI and cloud strategies.