IT leaders still on the hunt for VMware alternatives

“You don’t want to jump from one frying pan to another,” he says. “At the end of the day switching is not a competitive advantage; it’s a bit of the infrastructure and plumbing, and there’s the opportunity cost of investment to other AI initiatives and other things that require capital and expenditure.”

Still, many CIOs want more vendor flexibility and control over their virtualization spending, Costello says.

“One thing clients don’t like, and it’s not unique to VMware software and virtualization capabilities, is that they don’t like being forced into a corner to make a choice,” he adds. “CIOs feel a lack of control over their estate, when, all of a sudden, the price for this big technology that they’ve been relying on for 15 years goes up 3x.”