Addicted to Cloud – The Broadcom Intervention with Joe Baguley
We asked Broadcom’s CTO to tell us the truth about VCF, AI, and what the hell’s going on with VMware… and he did.
Interrupting our Digital trust series for this whopper…When Broadcom bought VMware for $61 billion, everyone had something to say — most of it loud.
Suddenly your hypervisor had a new owner. Partners were dropped, prices went up (allegedly), and that product list? Cut to one: VCF.
Fast forward to today, and Joe Baguley – now EMEA CTO at Broadcom – is still here, still building, and still answering the big questions.
So we brought him into the State of Systems studio.
This episode is the real story behind the VMware reset – from someone who’s been inside it the entire time. No PR spin, no soft questions, just a deep dive into what happened, what’s changed, and what it means for every IT team trying to make cloud actually work.
Here’s what we learnt:
- Broadcom went from 42 data centres to 7, and 2,500 IT staff to just 68 – running 15,000 physical hosts for 27 business units.
- VCF 9 was built by flipping R&D on its head – and now it leads the entire stack.
- Most enterprises don’t need fewer licences – they need to stop custom-building bad “best-of-breed” cars.
- Every large customer is asking about private AI – and running it on-prem is now cheaper than the public cloud.
- Private cloud isn’t just alive – it’s a hedge against sovereignty chaos, data sprawl, and AI hallucinations.
- Joe’s confident score for the future of private cloud? “It goes to 11.”
We also got into:
✅ Sovereignty vs the US Cloud Act
✅ AI permissioning and RAG models
✅ Fleet-level ops
✅ Total cost of ownership myths
✅ Why most people build private cloud completely wrong
If you’re an IT leader who’s been told to cut costs, stay compliant, and somehow prep for AI at the same time – this episode is for you!! Watch out on our socials we saved some exclusive and brilliant content for shorts.
Watch or listen here:
YouTube: https://youtu.be/HjlpDNsmcMo?si=rgNCGBT-hqErFmoR
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1AGHiqaSyD4sKW1h8REfGg?si=a781bc6a20e3457b
Our Tik Tok for Exclusive Socials: https://www.tiktok.com/@stateofsystemspod
Full pod and downloads like Broadcoms Cloud Maturity Report is Available here: https://r-comconsulting.com/podcast/episode-3-addicted-to-cloud-the-broadcom-intervention-with-joe-baguley/
If you’d like to talk to us about how to get the most out of your VMware, VCF9 or anything else in the Broadcom-sphere you can register here and we’ll give you a call: https://share-eu1.hsforms.com/236idi_ssTiGYaMuHA57CrQ2em8yd – there’s no obligation.
If you’d like to take part in our podcast or start one of your own, contact hello@colourinmedia.com
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