Broadcom is accusing AT&T of trying to “rewind the clock and force” Broadcom “to sell support services for perpetual software licenses … that VMware has discontinued from its product line and to which AT&T has no contractual right to purchase.” The statement comes from legal documents Broadcom filed in response to AT&T’s lawsuit against Broadcom for refusing to renew support for its VMware perpetual licenses [PDF].
On August 29, AT&T filed a lawsuit [PDF] against Broadcom, alleging that Broadcom is breaking a contract by refusing to provide a one-year renewal for support for perpetually licensed VMware software. Broadcom famously ended perpetual VMware license sales shortly after closing its acquisition in favor of a subscription model featuring about two bundles of products rather than many SKUs.
AT&T claims its VMware contract (forged before Broadcom’s acquisition closed in November) entitles it to three one-year renewals of perpetual license support, and it’s currently trying to enact the second one. AT&T says it uses VMware products to run 75,000 virtual machines (VMs) across about 8,600 servers. The VMs are for supporting customer services operations and operations management efficiency, per AT&T. AT&T is asking the Supreme Court of the State of New York to stop Broadcom from ending VMware support services for AT&T and “further relief” as deemed necessary.
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