Broadcom-VMware Partner Winners And Losers In 2025: Comdivision CEO

VMware channel expert and comdivision CEO Yves Sandfort discusses Broadcom’s 2025 channel strategy and what type of partners will come out on top while others might be left by the wayside.

Yves Sandfort has been driving VMware solutions for over two decades, owning a wealth of knowledge about Broadcom-VMware’s current and future channel vision as Broadcom unleashes its 2025 partner strategy.

“I’m not sure by the end of this year, the amount of [Broadcom-VMware] partners are going to be the same. That’s the only part where I would expect it's going to likely dramatically shrink,” said Sandfort, CEO and founder of comdivision, in an interview with CRN.

“Partners need to prove to Broadcom that it makes sense to work with them. That's my personal advice to every partner I speak with is, ‘You need to prove that there is a reason why Broadcom needs to continue to work with you, not the other way,’” he said.

Comdivision is one of Broadcom-VMware’s top partners in Europe with a vast history inside VMware’s partner ecosystem for over 20 years. The Germany-based solution provider was the first partner in the world to be awarded all of VMware’s Master Services competencies.

San Jose, Calif.-based Broadcom has seen its stock surge 77 percent over the past year, with a market cap now of more than $1 trillion.

[Related: Broadcom Names New Channel Chief, Sales Leader: 5 Big Things To Know]

Sandfort said partners need to adapt to Broadcom’s 2025 channel charge which revolves around driving professional services targeting global customers, incentives for partners providing value-add services, and becoming stickier with Broadcom-VMware bundles.

“Broadcom wants to hand off level one and level two support to the partners. Broadcom does not want to have a massive PS [professional services] organization. This means you need to have a very, very strong partner-base which can focus on these additional services so they can actually bring the professional services and do the support,” he said.

However, Broadcom-VMware partners who are focused on reselling or have an SMB customer base might be in some trouble ahead.

“Partners who are more in the mid-range scenario, not necessarily focused on VCF and everything else—they might potentially get into more difficult times because that’s clearly not Broadcom’s focus anymore,” comdivision’s CEO said. “They are looking into partners who can actually traverse small vSphere customers into VCF [VMware Cloud Foundation] customers or, to be realistic, get rid of them.”

In an interview with CRN, Sandfort talks about his company’s biggest bets in 2025, Broadcom-VMware’s channel strategy and the hiring of Broadcom’s new global channel chief Brian Moats.

“Brian’s strategy is a total win for us,” Sandfort said. “It’s going to be a total win for other partners who also have the same skill sets we have.”

How do you feel about Broadcom’s new global channel chief Brian Moats (pictured)? What does his hiring say to Broadcom-VMware’s channel?

Hiring someone internally within Broadcom is nothing new. They look at their own people before they take someone else from another company. …. I'm expecting that he has a very good chance to actually make an impact, but my feeling is also he has a lot of pressure.

It basically fits to the model [Broadcom CEO] Hock [Tan] has said during conferences, but also in direct meetings, which is: he’s looking for partners who really bring more valued solutions to the market. Hock has been far more clear with this than many other vendors.

I’ve heard Broadcom very clearly saying multiple times, ‘Worst case, we will give up any volume reseller over someone who’s going to provide value.’

I even asked, ‘Does this mean you are going to basically cut off someone who is actually making $1 billion in revenue with you?’ The feedback was very clearly, ‘Yes, because if someone is just a volume reseller, it's not providing the value we need in the Broadcom model.’

How do you think Broadcom’s 2025 channel strategy with Moats at the helm affects the broader Broadcom-VMware partner community?

Seeing that Moats comes from Broadcom’s global system integrator (GSIs) side, the big question is going to be: how many partners does he really envision (Broadcom-VMware) having?

So the question is, besides the GSIs, how many more partners are they really going to have and how many more are they going to work with? It’s perfect for us because we’re global.

I’m not sure by the end of this year, the amount of partners is going to be the same. That’s the only part where I would expect it's going to likely dramatically shrink.

Partners need to prove to Broadcom that it makes sense to work with them. That's my personal advice to every partner I speak with is: you need to prove that there is a reason why Broadcom needs to continue to work with you, not the other way.

Because there is a huge market out there and in a few years’ time, that market is going to be spread across a much smaller amount of partners. This means, as a partner, make good money with them.

What is Broadcom-VMware’s future for the channel? What do they want partners doing in 2025?

Broadcom wants to hand off level one and level two support to the partners.

Broadcom does not want to have a massive PS [professional services] organization. This means you need to have a very, very strong partner base, which can actually focus on these additional services so they can actually bring the professional services and do the support.

In reality, no partner wants another partner to do the support and integration for them. They accept the fact that sometimes the vendor does PS, but when you look at Broadcom’s statement that they don't want to do that much PS by themselves anymore, then [Moats strategy] is just a logical consequence.

For us, his message is perfect because we are one of the rare partners in the Broadcom ecosystem who is already global. We are already set up in three continents and have a strong partnership in Asia-PAC, so we could actually balance it out to four continents.

So for us, this actually makes sense because more customers are global. As global customers still need local services, you need to have partners which can deliver these services in different locations around the globe.

If I’m working with a U.S. government agency, I don’t have to do the sale, which can be done by Broadcom’s strategic sales team because they are perfect at that. I can later on just come in and deliver the services. And to be realistic, I’m not even necessarily keen on these very large yields to even deliver the licenses because we are talking about 1 percent margins in the first place. That is not very attractive. So giving the PS back to the partners makes sense.

the hand sign of men a stop, caution. What type of partners might be in trouble in 2025?

Partners who are more in the mid-range scenario, not necessarily focused on VCF and everything else—they might potentially get into more difficult times because that’s clearly not Broadcom’s focus anymore.

They are still happy to sell these products, but it’s not their focus. They are looking into partners who can actually traverse small vSphere customers into VCF [VMware Cloud Foundation] customers or, to be realistic, get rid of them.

Nothing in the current program says, like, ‘Let’s foster these very small customers.’ Everything says, ‘Either upsell from that or make sure that we don’t have that problem anymore.

This is potentially fine because a hypervisor by itself is just commodity.

Hock’s very clear statement to the market is, ‘You are going to lead with the full package.’

Now you have someone saying, ‘Here's the full package. You're going to pay for it, no matter whether you use it or not. And I'm going to play more or less, let's say, the Microsoft game in constantly reminding you that you already have the full package from me. You don't need the other vendors anymore.’

I totally understand why this is a lot easier for the services partners, because for us, we don't have that many different vendors we have to worry about. We can actually strongly focus on one specific solution.

But on the other side, I also see why it's more difficult for more resell-focused partners. Because the margins if you just resell Broadcom, the margins by itself, you can only make them attractive if you sell the services and everything else around.

The whole discussion is like, ‘As a partner for the long term, you will not be able to just be resell. You need to provide the services. You need to build solutions around this.’ Again, none of this is new.

What are comdivision’s three biggest bets and investments in 2025?

Our big bet is clearly on the services side. We have a complete set of prepackaged design and implementation services for our customers, which has been well received and which we also offer to other partners. So those partners who can't do that by themselves, we are basically reselling our implementation services. We have distributors like Arrow and TD Synnex who are basically taking our services and reselling that through other partners. So that is one of our big bets, because we have a lot of experience around that and are growing the fastest in that specific space.

Number two is managed services. Many customers want to get out of the public cloud, but they don't want to really operate the cloud by themselves. This is something we are doing intensively: the customer still owns the hardware, but we operate the VMware stack for them so that they can focus on their business. So they have it on-prem, they have it in their own books, but we are basically operating it for them.

The third bet is AI. I'm still not 100 percent sure how much AI really in the on-prem scenario is going to be. But AI is going to play a massive game in the future of IT, no matter what's going to happen. Many IT companies still don't understand the value of AI. They are focusing more on the sales side. We are looking into utilizing AI for consulting and architecture work. There are good opportunities in the AI space. Everybody is making too much noise around that at the moment, so that let's see what reality is.