[German]A dispute between VMware by Broadcom and Siemens AG. The two parties are at loggerheads over licensing. VMware has now sued Siemens for unlicensed products.
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Lawsuit by VMware against Siemens
There is a new development in the matter of VMware by Broadcom and its customer Siemens. VMware LLC has filed a lawsuit for "copyright infringement" against Siemens AG, Siemens Corporation, Siemens Industry Software, Inc, Siemens Medical Solutions USA, Inc, Siemens Mobility, Inc, PETNET Solutions, Inc. and Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics, Inc. in a district court in the US state of Delaware on March 21, 2025.
The term "copyright infringement" can mean many things – but the PDF version of the lawsuit provides clarification. VMware accuses Siemens (USA) and its subsidiaries of downloading, distributing and using VMware products from VMware servers without a valid license.
A disputed list of products
According to the statement of claim, Siemens AG itself provided VMware with a list of VMware products in use on September 9, 2024. The statement from VMware in the plain tiff refers to "unlicensed products", which is probably legal terminology. My understanding is that it was about renewing the licenses and that Siemens listed the VMware product installations used in the company's divisions.
License renewal was due in 2024
VMware and Siemens AG first concluded a Master Software License and Service Agreement (MSLA) on November 28, 2012. This MSLA was amended on September 29, 2021, and had a term of three years. In other words, the MSLA expired at the end of September 2024 and had to be extended. In this case, the new VMware conditions with drastic price increases are likely to have been in place.
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Siemens demand for support
By submitting the list, Siemens AG demanded, according to the statement of claim, that VMware accept a purchase order to provide maintenance and support services for the listed products (which include technical support as well as software patches, fixes, updates and upgrades and are commonly referred to as "Support Services").
Proof of license missing for Siemens
Upon reviewing the September 9 list, VMware discovered that there were a large number of products listed for which there was no record of Siemens AG purchasing a license.
VMware immediately informed Siemens AG of this fact. But even then, Siemens AG insisted that the September 9 list was accurate and demanded that VMware accept that listing.
Siemens threatens legal action
Siemens AG also repeatedly threatened VMware LLC with legal action if VMware did not accept the September 9, 2024 list and did not agree to provide support services for the products listed therein.
Under this threat, and to avoid a potential disruption to Siemens' business, VMware agreed under protest to provide maintenance and support for the products on the list, according to the lawsuit. However, VMware reserved its rights – including the right to seek damages for Siemens' unlawful use of its software.
Foolish move, new list submitted
At some point, it dawned on those responsible at Siemens that they were heading for a problem. After all, they had provided VMware with the information that they had presumably used unlicensed products.
This of course assumes that there really were installations that were never licensed. This should actually be impossible due to the license keys. It is therefore quite possible that the VMware records are incomplete – also due to the move to Broadcom and the portal changes. And it is conceivable that a missing license only arose retrospectively because minimum CPU values per instance were suddenly assumed and accepted. The statement of claim reflects the view of VMware LLC.
Weeks later, according to the complaint, Siemens AG attempted to withdraw the list after the company apparently realized that the September 9 list was in violation of VMware's rights. Instead, it tried to offer a new list that better matched VMware's records of Siemens AG's licenses.
By then, however, the "child had probably already fallen into the well". Siemens AG never provided VMware with a credible explanation as to why it submitted the September 9 list and insisted on its accuracy, so VMware had to assume that the list represented the actual use of VMware products.
Confrontation leads to lawsuit
The discrepancy could have been resolved quietly and products licensed if necessary. But Siemens AG, according to the lawsuit, resisted VMware's efforts to independently verify the number of products it used by auditing or running a script on its systems – something that other, more cooperative and accommodating customers allowed without objection, the VMware attorneys write.
Until the lawsuit was filed, Siemens AG had refused to rectify the situation by acknowledging the unlicensed and infringing use of VMware's copyrighted products and attempting to resolve the matter. VMware, in its view, therefore has no choice but to bring this action to resolve the issue that Siemens AG has admitted.
Siemens AG would not comment to German site Golem, who reported, but stated that the company had not yet been served with a lawsuit. According to German site heise, 1,400 instances without a license are being discussed.
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