The mass exodus everyone predicted never came. What arrived instead is a slow, deliberate reduction, and a dangerous window of inertia that is costing organizations more than they realize.
Two years after Broadcom completed its acquisition of VMware, the expected stampede never materialized. What happened instead was more measured, and in some ways more troubling. According to a January 2026 survey of 302 IT decision-makers by CloudBolt Software, 86 percent of organizations are actively reducing their VMware footprint. Yet only 2 percent have migrated 75 percent or more of their environment away from the platform.
The gap between those two numbers tells the real story of where the market stands today.
From Panic to Paralysis
In 2024, many organizations braced for the worst. But when renewal quotes arrived, the increases were often less severe than feared. CloudBolt found that only 14 percent of respondents saw costs more than double, compared to the 73 percent who had expected that outcome. The relative relief created a new problem: strategic drift.
The CloudBolt survey also found that 63 percent of respondents changed their VMware strategy two or more times over the two-year period. That churn has its own cost: in distracted leadership, in delayed execution, and in recurring platform evaluation cycles that never converge on action.
The Depth of the Dependency Problem
The reason so few organizations have completed a meaningful exit is not lack of will. According to Gartner, via Network World, initial scoping alone for a large-scale VMware migration requires seven to ten full-time employees working for one month, followed by six additional people spending up to nine months on technical evaluation. That resourcing reality is not reflected in how most organizations are staffing their migration programs.
VMware is embedded beneath ERP systems, healthcare environments, manufacturing control systems, and regulated workloads. Moving these is not a hypervisor swap. It is an infrastructure redesign program.
The Cost of the Middle Ground
Organizations in a partial-migration state are maintaining VMware for remaining workloads, managing a new platform for migrated ones, and carrying the overhead of both simultaneously. CloudBolt identified migration complexity and risk (25%), higher-than-expected costs (23%), and technical limitations (21%) as the top barriers.
Executive Pressure Is Building
For 41 percent of survey respondents, executive pressure to act has increased. The full CloudBolt report makes clear: the business case for moving has not disappeared. It has simply been deferred while organizations grapple with scope and complexity.
What Effective Programs Look Like
The organizations making genuine progress started with data: a clean, normalized inventory of the VMware estate before defining waves or committing to timelines. That is what the ReadyWorks VM Accelerator provides in 45 days or less.
READY TO ACT?
Get your VMware estate assessment in 45 days. Download the ReadyWorks VM Accelerator free trial and start your migration program with data you can defend. Learn more about VM Accelerator
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Why have so few organizations completed their VMware exit?
The primary reasons are deep technical dependency, long renewal cycles, and the complexity of migrating workloads embedded in regulated infrastructure. Gartner estimates large-scale migrations take 18 to 48 months.
What does it cost to stay in a dual-operation state?
Operating VMware and a new platform simultaneously means duplicate licensing, divided team attention, split tooling and monitoring costs, and continued accumulation of technical debt.
How do I know which workloads to move first?
Effective wave planning starts with accurate inventory data: VM activity levels, OS versions, network dependencies, and storage configurations. The ReadyWorks VM Accelerator normalizes that data in 45 days.
Is it realistic to plan for a partial VMware exit?
Yes. Most organizations will retain some VMware infrastructure for several years. A deliberate partial exit to Nutanix AHV on a defined schedule is a legitimate and achievable strategy.
