T-Mobile is moving tens of thousands of virtual machines onto VMware between cases

T-Mobile is asking a New York court to rule that Broadcom was forced to continue supporting its VMware licenses.

In its complaint, T-Mobile said it has tens of thousands of computers running VMware software across about 303,140 CPU cores. It also said it was moving to VMware but realized it time consuming and technical difficulties they are involved in the transfer of more than 1,000 programs.

It presented its case, which was first reported by The Register today, in the Supreme Court of the State of New York in August 2025 (PDF).

The mobile company said in 2023, it will buy VMware perpetual licenses, including two years of support and an option to buy a third year. But when Broadcom bought VMware, it stopped selling VMware perpetual license in favor of subscriptions and began aggregating VMware products into smaller, more expensive bundles.

When T-Mobile tried to increase the support for the third year $5,288,398.45, Broadcom did not allow this, in the writing of August 2025 from T-Mobile. A Broadcom representative reportedly told T-Mobile via email: “Broadcom has announced the end of all perpetual services, including the New Year Renewal for perpetual support.”

A judge ordered T-Mobile to receive relief from October 2025 to August 3, 2026, $5.28 million, plus $500,000 in disgorgement.

Now, T-Mobile is seeking a declaration that it must resume service and other relief as the court deems necessary.