During a town hall meeting announcing the potential $61 billion merger of VMware with Broadcom, VMware executives cherry-picked questions from the company’s 35,000 employees, but did say its suitor was interested in the talent of employees and relationships they have cultivated with customers.
“Remember it’s business as usual right now,” said VMware’s chief people officer, Betsy Sutter. “And then we’ve also talked about various other strategies in terms of keeping people engaged and at VMware. So all good, all good so far in terms of how we’re moving forward with our current programs. But we have yet to redefine what the future looks like, and we’ll do that with Broadcom.”
VMware executives praised the efforts of the board and workers for creating an opportunity for the deal, but they had few guarantees to offer VMware employees around job retention, or benefits, such as work from home.
VMware CEO Raghu Raghuram told employees that they are right to be concerned about what the future holds for them.
“It’s OK for us to have some questions and concerns based on what has happened in the past,” he said referring to past Broadcom deals with CA and Symantec. “But so far what we have heard from them, it has been quite different.”
Rumors about a deal between the two companies began swirling last week, and were then confirmed on May 26 with an announcement from Broadcom. The blockbuster deal would end VMware’s months of independence as a standalone company after it was spun off from Dell last October.
Many VMware partners have expressed concern that such a merger would upend the solid channel relationship that resellers have with the company. However, Broadcom has sought to play down that talk, with Broadcom Software President Tom Krause saying they have learned from their past and are ready to “embrace the channel.”