Hewlett Packard Enterprise announced a promotion providing up to one year of free licenses for its VM Essentials virtualization software during its Discover event in Las Vegas.
The offer targets customers facing higher costs after Broadcom’s acquisition of VMware. It includes a year of HPE Zerto for one dollar and zero-interest financing through HPE Financial Services.
HPE positions the product as a VMware alternative that supports migration from ESXi environments. The software carries a list price of 600 dollars per CPU socket per year.
Channel partners have mixed reactions. One partner called the limited scope of the promotion a step in the correct direction but urged wider availability to speed adoption.
Another partner expects sales to quadruple due to reduced migration risk for customers.