90% of VMware Customers Want Out — But Only 2% Have Moved

Ninety percent of IT leaders at VMware customers are looking for alternatives, according to a survey by third-party support vendor Rimini Street — yet a separate CloudBolt survey found just 2% of respondents have shifted three-quarters of their environments away from the virtualization giant. That gap between intent and exit defines the current enterprise software market, where AI-coded alternatives are making replacement thinkable for the first time in years.

CIOs are adding three entrenched packages to their replacement lists: VMware, SAP's ECC ERP suite, and Oracle's Java. Representatives of all three companies did not respond to requests for comment.

What is driving the replacement push?

Three forces are converging: rising licensing costs, end-of-support deadlines, and the improving functionality of AI-powered coding tools that let IT leaders build targeted software in-house rather than buy it.

Broadcom raised prices significantly after acquiring VMware nearly three years ago. SAP has ended support for its perpetually licensed ECC package and is pushing customers toward subscription-based S/4HANA, with shifting deadlines prompting customer backlash. Oracle switched Java to per-employee pricing in 2023.

"The vendor changed the deal, not the software," said Brad LaPorte, strategic advisor at Lionfish Tech Advisors. "VMware changed the price and the packaging. SAP put a clock on ECC. Oracle switched Java to per-employee pricing in 2023, which means a subscriber now pays for staff who've never opened a Java app."

About 22% of IT leaders are actively reconsidering core enterprise systems such as ERP and CRM, according to Gartner research. "IT leaders aren't planning wholesale replacements of core systems yet," said Patrick Connaughton, Gartner's chief of research — but more than nine in 10 expect market disruption. "A fundamental buy-versus-build inversion is under way as rapid adoption of agentic coding tools enables organizations to build custom alternatives faster and at lower cost," he said.

Why do most customers stay?

Incumbent advantages — institutional trust, regulatory moats, and data lock-in — will keep most CIOs from making major replacements for three to six years, Connaughton said.

Kevin M. Coles, founder of Coles Technical Group, said most surveys overstate likely migration. "The real costs are the integrations nobody documented, the reports finance depends on, the staff who only know one console, and the year of running two systems side by side," he said. "Most surveys measure frustration, not switching cost."

John Burns, senior director of finance systems and transformation at Herc Rentals, confirmed the pattern from his own migrations: "On every ERP and enterprise performance management migration I've run, the license was the smallest line item." His mitigation strategy at Herc Rentals was architectural: "I surrounded the ERP with best-of-breed tools so they could unplug the ERP on their timeline rather than worry about the product sunsetting."

Burns also cautioned that AI is not yet the escape hatch some vendors fear. "AI agents aren't replacing ERP yet. An agent needs a clean general ledger to read from and write to. The ERP underneath stayed," he said.

LaPorte ranked the difficulty with a housing comparison: "Java is a studio apartment — pack a few boxes and you're out. VMware is the house you've lived in for 15 years, with wiring from half your business running through the walls. SAP is the house where the most likely next address is SAP's newer building, on SAP's schedule." Untangling from VMware can take up to four years.

How should CIOs prepare?

The practitioners converge on the same playbook:

• Ask the CFO how many business disruptions are acceptable before committing; if the answer is zero, reconsider the switch, Burns said.
• "Inventory before you price," LaPorte advised — map every workload, integration and admin account, because most exit estimates cover the license and miss the wiring.
• Verify replacements are genuinely independent, not leaning on the same identity, cloud or integration layer, Coles said.
• Run the exit exercise before the renewal notice arrives: "Even if you stay, a credible exit plan is the best leverage you'll ever have in the negotiation."
• Plan for the half-moved house: two estates, two patch cycles, two attack surfaces for two to four years — and the old house is the one that gets broken into.

The tension is unlikely to resolve soon: as agentic coding tools cut build costs while vendors keep repricing seat-based models, the buy-versus-build question moves from theoretical to a standing agenda item in every renewal cycle.