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Considering VMware alternatives? Visual One Intelligence & Clear Technologies President & COO Phil Godwin interviewed Verge.io CMO George Crump to gain firsthand perspective on the current state of change within the enterprise virtualization market, including evaluation criteria, migration strategies, and tips for maintaining operational stability during infrastructure transitions.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length. You can watch the full interview here.
VMware Alternatives in 2025: The Future of Enterprise Virtualization
The enterprise virtualization landscape is shifting dramatically. As organizations grapple with Broadcom’s acquisition of VMware and subsequent pricing changes, many infrastructure leaders find themselves at a crossroads: adapt to potentially dramatic cost increases, or explore VMware alternatives that seemed unthinkable just a few years ago.
To gain perspective on this evolving enterprise virtualization market, we recently sat down with George Crump, CMO of Verge.io, to discuss where things might be heading.
As the former founder of Storage Switzerland and a leading voice in infrastructure analysis, Crump offers unique insights into how organizations can navigate this transition.
Evaluating VMware Alternatives: Real or Imagined Exodus?
“The tip of the spear for us is clearly that group of customers that are getting their renewal agreements back from VMware (and) having a heart attack,” notes Crump.
This aligns with what many infrastructure leaders are reporting – some seeing 50% increases in costs, others facing potential quintupling of their enterprise virtualization spend.
But not everyone is rushing for the exits. Three distinct approaches seem to be emerging:
- Organizations actively seeking immediate alternatives to reduce VMware dependency
- Companies with existing ELAs taking a “wait and see” approach while evaluating options
- Teams that are so deeply integrated within VMware staying put because migration seems too daunting
For that last group especially, the barrier isn’t necessarily technical – it’s operational. Years of refined processes, trained staff, and integrated tools create legitimate concerns about disrupting established workflows.
The VMware Alternative Landscape
The market for VMware alternatives isn’t new, but it’s seeing unprecedented attention. However, Crump cautions against assuming all enterprise virtualization alternatives are equally viable for enterprise needs: “What makes [Verge.io] different than all the other alternatives is we’re a real enterprise class play.”
Many emerging VMware alternatives require dramatic operational changes.
“If you’re going to go from VMware to Kubernetes or Docker or OpenShift…it’s a major change in processes, a major relearning curve,” Crump explains. “With us…you click on different places in the GUI, we might call things different things, but a VM is still a VM. A network is still a network.”
This raises an important point about evaluating alternatives. While containers and cloud-native architectures represent the future for many workloads, wholesale migration of existing virtualized applications might not always be practical or beneficial in the short term.
A Measured Approach to Migration
Rather than rushing into dramatic changes, Crump advocates for a methodical transition: “I’m always going to lead toward planning…As good as our product is, it’s really good to have a plan and execute against that plan and knowing which workloads make the most sense to move first.”
This “crawl, walk, run” approach allows organizations to:
- Optimize costs through careful workload placement
- Test alternatives with new workloads rather than existing ones
- Gain expertise with new platforms before critical migrations
- Maintain operational stability during transition
The Role of AI in Infrastructure Evolution
Looking ahead, artificial intelligence will likely play an increasing role in infrastructure management – but perhaps not in the ways many expect.
Crump suggests the real value won’t be in buzzwords, but in practical applications: “Where we’re heading is…the ability to create an environment that could very quickly auto-deploy AI workloads.”
Soon, AI may also help with infrastructure troubleshooting: “You can say, ‘Hey, why was my system slow last night?’ And it’ll give you answers” – with the caveat that it may be difficult (for now) to ensure accuracy in infrastructure contexts where AI hallucinations could be dangerous.
Planning Your Enterprise Virtualization Strategy
Whether you’re actively seeking VMware alternatives or simply planning for future possibilities, Crump’s insights surface several key considerations:
- Start with comprehensive visibility into your current enterprise virtualization environment to understand what workloads could be candidates for migration
- Consider starting with new workloads rather than migrating existing ones
- Evaluate VMware alternatives based on operational impact as much as technical capabilities
- Plan for a measured transition rather than a “big bang” migration
- Look for opportunities to optimize existing investments while exploring alternatives
The shifting enterprise virtualization landscape creates both challenges and opportunities for infrastructure leaders.
By taking a thoughtful, measured approach to evaluating VMware alternatives and planning migrations, organizations can navigate these changes while maintaining operational stability and controlling costs.
About Verge.io
Verge.io began with a bold vision: to simplify IT infrastructure from the ground up.
Rejecting the fragmented silos of the traditional IT stack, we developed VergeOS—a single, powerful, and streamlined software solution that runs on commodity hardware. VergeOS seamlessly integrates the hypervisor, storage, and networking functions, replacing the traditional IT stack with a unified, efficient platform. By leveraging AI and ML, VergeOS excels in self-management, self-optimization, and extending hardware lifespan, eliminating the need for hardware compatibility lists and preventing premature hardware obsolescence.
VergeOS empowers IT generalists to deploy entire virtual data centers with greater speed and ease than deploying individual virtual machines—and at a fraction of the cost. By simplifying complex infrastructure and significantly reducing expenses, VergeOS makes robust, reliable IT environments more accessible and manageable for businesses of all sizes.
About Visual One Intelligence®
Visual One Intelligence® is an infrastructure tool with a unique approach—guaranteeing better & faster monitoring, observability, and FinOps insights by leveraging resource-level metrics across your hybrid infrastructure.
By consolidating independent data elements into unified metrics, Visual One’s platform correlates and interprets hybrid infrastructure data to illuminate cost-saving and operations-sustaining details that otherwise stay hidden.
These insights lead to fewer tickets, less downtime, lower costs, and more efficient architectures.
