半导体行业观察·2025-07-25 01:44Core Viewpoint - The European Cloud Infrastructure Service Providers Association (CISPE) has formally appealed to the European General Court to annul the European Commission's approval of Broadcom's acquisition of VMware, citing legal errors and significant failures in the competition assessment process [2][9]. Group 1: Legal and Competitive Concerns - CISPE claims that Broadcom unilaterally terminated existing contracts and imposed burdensome new licensing conditions, leading to cost increases of up to tenfold and long-term commitments for necessary VMware software [2][10]. - The organization has been lobbying the European Commission for two years, expressing concerns that the Commission has not taken substantial actions to support European cloud service providers or their customers [3][11]. - CISPE argues that the Commission acknowledged significant risks to competition in its official summary but did not impose any conditions to prevent Broadcom from gaining a dominant market position [9]. Group 2: Impact on Cloud Service Providers - The new restrictive licensing terms announced by Broadcom could exclude many small cloud service providers, including CISPE members, from purchasing and reselling VMware-based cloud services, which are essential for providing secure and flexible cloud solutions [10][11]. - CISPE Secretary Francisco Mingorance highlighted that the dominant position of VMware software in the virtualization market means that the unfair licensing terms affect all organizations using cloud technology in Europe, including hospitals and universities [11]. Group 3: Competitive Landscape - Before the acquisition, VMware faced competition from companies like Microsoft, Nutanix, and XCP-NG, while the European Commission's investigation primarily focused on hardware products rather than the impact on virtualization software competition [4][5]. - Despite the challenges, alternatives to VMware exist, with Nutanix remaining a strong competitor and new entrants like Platform9, Arcfra, and OpenNebula actively positioning themselves in the market [5][6].