Mainframes were supposed to be obsolete thirty years ago. They are not. They persisted because the cost, risk, and operational complexity of migrating the workloads running on them exceeded the financial benefit of moving for the organizations that depended on them most heavily. VMware is following the same pattern.
What the Data Actually Shows
CloudBolt's January 2026 survey found that only 2 percent of organizations have migrated 75 percent or more of their VMware environment. Five percent have not migrated at all. The majority (68 percent) have migrated between 1 and 49 percent. This is not a market in the early stages of a rapid platform transition. It is a market in the early stages of a generational platform diversification.
Gartner has been consistent in its guidance, as Network World reported, that for most enterprises, a complete VMware exit is not economically justified. The research firm estimates 18 to 48 months for large migrations and $300 to $3,000 per VM in external services alone.
The Permanent Estate Concept
The most strategically sophisticated organizations are not asking 'when do we exit VMware.' They are asking 'which workloads belong on VMware permanently, and which are candidates for migration within a defined timeframe.' That distinction changes how you approach licensing negotiations with Broadcom. An organization with a credible permanent estate has genuine negotiating leverage.
The Strategic Logic of Partial Exit
A deliberate partial exit strategy focuses migration investment on workloads where the economic and operational case is strongest: resource-intensive workloads where Nutanix licensing economics provide clear savings, and workloads that are not deeply integrated with VMware-specific tools requiring significant remediation.
It preserves VMware for workloads where migration complexity is genuinely high, where operational risk is disproportionate to the financial benefit, and where the new platform's capabilities do not yet match VMware's for the specific workload type.
How ReadyWorks Supports Strategic Segmentation
The VM Accelerator provides the inventory foundation that makes strategic segmentation possible. By normalizing estate data and flagging compatibility issues, EOL operating systems, and dependency complexity, it gives organizations the data they need to distinguish permanent-estate candidates from migration candidates.
READY TO ACT?
Segment your estate before your next renewal. Download the ReadyWorks VM Accelerator free for 45 days and build the inventory foundation that makes strategic VMware segmentation possible. Learn more about VM Accelerator
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Is it strategically acceptable to plan for long-term VMware retention?
Yes. For workloads deeply integrated with VMware-specific tools, carrying high migration risk, or where the cost-benefit equation does not tip positive within a reasonable horizon, long-term retention is a legitimate strategic choice.
How does the mainframe analogy apply to VMware?
Like mainframes, VMware has become the operational foundation for enterprise workloads that are difficult and expensive to migrate. Organizations that navigated the mainframe era successfully identified which workloads genuinely needed to move and which could remain indefinitely, rather than attempting a complete exit that was never financially justified.
What is a permanent VMware estate and how is it identified?
A permanent VMware estate consists of workloads for which the migration cost-benefit equation does not tip positive within a reasonable planning horizon: typically tier-one enterprise applications with deep VMware integrations, highly regulated workloads with complex compliance dependencies, and workloads with demanding SLAs where migration risk exceeds operational benefit.
How does a partial exit strategy affect Broadcom licensing negotiations?
Organizations with a credible, documented permanent VMware estate have a stronger negotiating position than those making unsubstantiated exit claims. A defined permanent estate volume represents a long-term commitment to Broadcom that has negotiating value.
