T-Mobile moving tens of thousands of virtual machines off VMware amid lawsuit

July 1, 2026 | Source: Ars Technica AI

Tags: VMware, Broadcom, T-Mobile, enterprise licensing, cloud infrastructure

T-Mobile is suing Broadcom in New York over terminated VMware perpetual license support, while migrating more than 303,000 CPU cores off VMware infrastructure — a case that highlights the enterprise costs of Broadcom's post-acquisition licensing shift.

Details

T-Mobile filed suit against Broadcom in New York Supreme Court in August 2025, arguing the company was contractually obligated to honor perpetual VMware license support renewals. T-Mobile operates VMware across approximately 303,140 CPU cores with tens of thousands of virtual machines supporting 1,000+ applications — making migration a multi-year, technically complex undertaking. Broadcom discontinued all perpetual VMware license sales after its 2023 acquisition, forcing customers onto subscription-based bundles. When T-Mobile attempted to renew support for a third year at $5.29M, Broadcom refused. T-Mobile at one point offered $20M for two years of continued support; Broadcom declined that too. A court injunction in place through August 3, 2026 ordered support continuation at the $5.28M rate. Broadcom claims $24M in costs to support six VMware products under that injunction — T-Mobile disputes this, noting it uses only three of the six products and opened just two service cases in 2026. Similar disputes with AT&T (settled privately) and UK retailer Tesco (ongoing) suggest this is a systemic pattern, not an isolated case. The outcome could set a precedent for thousands of enterprises still on perpetual VMware licenses.