VMware launches vSphere Express to appeal to smaller customers

Summarised from 2 outlets · 3 reports · Updated 5 Nov, 07:03 · Archive

VMware has announced vSphere Express, a lower-cost virtualization offering for organisations with smaller requirements.

VMware has announced vSphere Express, a new lower-cost virtualization offering designed for smaller organisations. The product supports up to 128 cores and will be sold through IT distributor marketplaces. According to IT distributor TD Synnex, vSphere Express costs $9,600 a year for running on up to 128 cores, though this price does not decrease for smaller deployments.

The release follows widespread complaints from small- to medium-sized business customers that VMware was pushing them towards VMware Cloud Foundation, an expensive flagship private cloud bundle with features those smaller organisations did not need. Some SMB users reported that VMware sales representatives had told them that vSphere Standard, the previous entry-level offering, was no longer available.

vSphere Express includes basic capabilities such as vMotion for live migration of virtual machines and high availability for automated restarts of failed machines. Unlike some other offerings, the product only supports discrete instances and organisations cannot manage them centrally. Prashanth Shenoy, VP of product marketing, told The Register that vSphere Express will receive updates as frequently as VMware's higher-tier offerings.

How it is being reported

• VMware quietly offers European users extended sales and support for low-end vSphereVersion 8 of Standard and Enterprise Plus will stay alive until October 2028The Register · 5 Nov, 04:31
• VMware releases vSphere Express for virtualization on up to 128 cores“We started listening to a lot of our lower-end customers," VMware exec says.Ars Technica · 4 Nov, 21:38
• VMware returns to low-end server virtualization with 'vSphere Express'128-cores max, sold on distributors' marketplaces, and in with a shot of restoring some trustThe Register · 4 Nov, 17:01

In this story: VMware · Broadcom · TD Synnex

This summary was written by AI from the headlines and standfirsts above, and states as fact only what at least two outlets report. How we use AI · Report a problem · Corrections log