Broadcom boss dismisses notion China could derail VMware buy

Broadcom CEO Hock Tan has dismissed concerns that China could derail nan semiconductor giant's acquisition of VMware.

UK authorities precocious approved nan deal, and US authorities haven't raised objections wrong a timeframe that would bespeak Uncle Sam intends to halt nan transaction up of its expected October 31 conclusion.

Think it through, publication it done and let's extremity correct there

But China has been quiet connected nan matter. Which matters, because Beijing precocious prevented Intel from acquiring Israeli patient Tower Semiconductor – possibly to flex its muscles successful consequence to galore US-led actions against Middle Kingdom tech companies.

On Broadcom's Q3 net call, Tan said nan woody has won "foreign finance power clearance successful each basal jurisdictions."

But that connection wasn't capable for Piper Sandler expert Harsh Kumar, who asked if China would beryllium a problem.

"Let maine opportunity this," Tan replied. "I made those circumstantial notes aliases remarks connected regulatory approval. I inquire that you deliberation it through, publication it done and let's extremity correct there."

Ouch.

Broadcom posted $8.9 cardinal gross for nan 4th – up 5 percent year-on-year. Net income of $3.3 cardinal was a $229 year-on-year jump.

Tan said Broadcom's networking business grew 20 percent year-on-year to $2.8 billion, pinch hyperscalers and different customers keen to build bigger networks to header pinch wide maturation and nan effect of expanding generative AI workloads.

"Over nan past quarter," he said, "we person already received important orders for our next-generation Tomahawk 5 move and Jericho3-AI routers and scheme to statesman shipping these products complete nan adjacent six months to respective hyperscale customers," he announced, adding that those orders will spot 400-gigabit networks replaced by 800-gigabit-capable links.

"And beyond this, for nan next-generation 1.6-terabit connectivity, we person already started improvement connected nan Tomahawk 6 switch, which has, among different things, 200G SerDes generating throughput capacity of complete 100 terabit per second," he said.

• Here’s really VMware hopes to walk $1B Broadcom R&D fund boost
• Ultra Ethernet Consortium wants to optimize networking for AI and HPC
• Nutanix reckons you tin worldly AI into a container – a container it manages, that is
• AWS makes its hybrid unreality behave a spot much for illustration normal, boring, on-prem servers

Broadcom Software, soon to beryllium renamed VMware, delivered gross of $1.9 cardinal and 5 percent year-on-year growth. Tan touted improved statement renewal rates among customers, and beardown cross-selling of products. Annual recurring gross for Broadcom package was projected astatine $5.3 cardinal – and that's without nan summation of VMware, arsenic Tan declined to connection guidance for nan effect of nan acquisition.

VMware's (probably) past group of numbers

It's not difficult to conjecture what that effect will beryllium because VMware besides announced its quarterly results connected Thursday US time, revealing quarterly gross of $3.41 cardinal – a 2 percent summation compared to past year's Q2.

Subscription and SaaS gross roseate 34 percent year-over-year to $1.26 billion, and delivered 37 percent of each revenue.

Net income of $477 cardinal was $130 cardinal which was 34 percent higher year-over-year. All of which suggests this clip adjacent twelvemonth Broadcom's equilibrium expanse could spot an other $12 cardinal of gross and plentifulness of nett income.

Or possibly rivals could nibble astatine those sums. As The Register has reported, Citrix spin-out XenServer has launched a VMware migration package, and Nutanix has told america of heightened liking successful its wares arsenic customers look for a VMware alternative.

On Nutanix's Q4 net telephone – which besides took spot connected August 31 – CEO Rajiv Ramaswami said that liking has persisted and led to a seven-figure deal.

He besides revealed quarterly gross of $492 cardinal – a year-on-year 28 percent jump.

Full twelvemonth gross of $1.86 cardinal represented 18 percent growth. Annual recurring gross is nan number Nutanix cares astir about and it reached $1.56 cardinal for nan twelvemonth – up 30 percent. Nutanix still posted quarterly and yearly losses, but felt successful sufficiently fresh financial information to initiate a $350 cardinal stock buyback.

In speech pinch The Register, Ramaswami said customers are consenting to walk "for nan correct reason" erstwhile they person request to put successful caller initiatives, aliases refresh hardware.

He besides said Nutanix sees plentifulness of upside successful nan Cisco business it announced this week, which will spot Switchzilla's income squad waste Nutanix's wares connected UCS servers – and beryllium compensated for it arsenic if they'd sold Cisco's ain products. Ramaswami said Nutanix sees an addressable marketplace of 100,000 customers, and that nan Cisco woody makes it easier for Nutanix to scope much of them and turn beyond its existent 25,000-customer base.

On Nutanix's net call, Ramaswami was asked astir unreality repatriations – activity of workloads retired of hyperscale clouds to on-prem resources.

He responded by saying he's seen a few, but a much absorbing inclination among Nutanix customers is "they are not capable to get their applications really to nationalist unreality arsenic quickly arsenic they would like." Such problems are compounded by nan truth that those users person committed to definite levels of unreality spend.

Those customers are past noticing that they tin get Nutanix licenses successful nan AWS aliases Azure unreality marketplaces, which lets them walk money committed to clouds and usage Nutanix's wares to easiness their unreality migrations.

That script will beryllium invited news to … Broadcom's Hock Tan, who has many times said he values VMware because nan world is going muticloud and Virtzilla has nan champion products to tame it.

In China, aliases anyplace else. ®