No, not in the software industry. Nothing VMware has in pure IP is that special. I can’t think of any of the big tech companies that even use VMware.
Broadcom is paying for the huge enterprise customer base, sales and support connections, mindshare, and engineering org that has proven adaptable to market demands.
> I can’t think of any of the big tech companies that even use VMware.
I would be shocked if every single 'big' tech company didn't use _some_ vmware product _somewhere_ internally. Their software portfolio is a hell of a lot bigger than just the actual vmware product. Example: where I work we use the vmware product Carbon Black for 'endpoint protection', which as I understand it is virus scanning + some amount of port monitoring.
Calm down. I’m talking about Google and Amazon in the hypervisor space (which is about the only interesting IP VMware has). Everything VMware makes can generally be done better in-house by tech companies. VMware’s business proposition is managing all of that cruft when it’s not an area of relevance to your business.
It’s like saying Taco Bell has incredible culinary secrets because it’s so widespread.
Note that this is just a tiny subset of companies that use VMWare (those that have writeups). I've worked for some very big companies that used it but aren't listed.