Broadcom told its remaining VMware cloud partners to grow by taking in providers who were leaving the program. 11:11 Systems has now done exactly that. The company announced on October 8 that it acquired selected IBM VMware cloud customers across North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific and South America. Neither side disclosed financial terms.
The deal covers enterprise workloads that currently run on IBM Cloud, and it marks 11:11 Systems’ eighth VMware-related purchase and eleventh acquisition overall. Earlier targets include iland Cloud, Sungard Availability Services, Faction and Ntirety, plus Digital Sense, which it bought from Aussie Broadband for up to A$18 million.
The reason these customers are changing hands starts with licensing. In May 2024, cloud providers stopped selling VMware products individually, and Broadcom folded them into VMware Cloud Foundation with new pricing. Then, on November 1, 2025, Broadcom replaced its partner program with an invitation-only model. CRN reported that hundreds of former partners did not make the cut. Providers that fell outside the new program could keep running under their existing contracts until those agreements ran out.
IBM felt the squeeze directly. On October 31, 2025, it stopped selling VMware on IBM Cloud to anyone without an active VMware workload there. Existing customers can still operate and expand, yet they cannot buy different VMware offerings, and some face limits on new regions or backup services. License portability adds another wrinkle, since new deployments after November 5, 2025 need a certified provider, and IBM no longer appears on that list.
Broadcom’s Ram Velaga said 11:11 Systems reflects the company’s model. CEO Brett Diamond told CRN that acquired customers can move to 11:11’s VMware Cloud Foundation platform without switching hypervisors, which spares them a rebuild.
Plenty remains unclear, though. The announcement gives no migration timetable, no cost details and no count of customers who have agreed to move. Anyone on IBM Cloud should ask about service continuity and pricing before assuming the transition is painless.
Consolidation like this makes the VMware cloud market smaller and more concentrated. Whether customers end up better served by fewer, larger providers is the part nobody has answered yet.
