VMware Fusion and Workstation now also free for commercial and educational use

Founded in 1998, VMware was acquired by EMC (today known as Dell EMC) for $625 million in early 2004. In early 2016, when Dell acquired EMC, VMware went through serious commotions, as all US developers were fired and the development team behind both Workstation and Fusion was disbanded. In 2021, Dell and VMware parted ways. At the end of 2023, Broadcom acquired VMware for a total of $69 billion. This spring, VMware Workstation and VMware Fusion became free for personal use. Now, this has been taken one step further, as educational and commercial use of these products has just become free.

While Workstation Pro and Fusion Pro are no longer available for purchase, those who are currently using them will be able to continue doing so, but without any cost. However, those who are no longer under a commercial contract will have to live with the free-tier support model. In this case, VMware no longer provides direct support to Workstation and Fusion users. When in need of help, the users will have to resort to the product documentation, knowledge base articles, and the online user community.

Thankfully, VMware Workstation and Fusion are not being discontinued. Although there won't be any real-time help available, both products will continue to receive new features, improvements, and fixes. 

Peter von Oven's Learning VMware Workstation for Windows: Implementing and Managing VMware’s Desktop Hypervisor Solution is currently available to buy for $39.99 in Kindle format (or $14.22 to rent), but those who want the paperback edition can grab it for 21% off, so they will have to shell out $43.40 instead of $54.99.