Toshiba had been using [VMware] for 16 years, and that relationship and trust has been eroded now

When Toshiba saw its VMware price tag explode by 10X, the tech giant knew it needed to find an alternative solution after being a loyal VMware customer for 16 years.

“Suddenly, [VMware’s] cost changed,” said Katsuhiro Nigorikawa, CTO of Toshiba I.S. Corporation, in an interview with CRN. “We turned to Nutanix’s strengths in HCI [hyperconverged infrastructure]. Nutanix HCI was the best option for cost reduction.”

The Japanese company is currently migrating 2,200 virtual machines off VMware-Broadcom to Nutanix.

Toshiba is a longtime VMware vSphere customer but once Broadcom condensed VMware’s once-massive product portfolio into just a few bundled offerings, Toshiba became a brand-new customer of Nutanix.

The first phase of migrating 2,200 VMs off VMware to Nutanix will focus on certain Japanese corporate divisions inside Toshiba, which Nigorikawa said will take between one and two years.

“We cannot migrate, to date, each department. That takes time. We are a global company. We are only focusing on Japan right now,” said Nigorikawa.