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10 Dec 2025Form Number
LP2343PDF size
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Market Instability and Rising Costs Are Forcing Hard Decisions
Over the past year, IT leaders have faced disruption in areas that were once considered stable. Changes to VMware licensing and support models—combined with unplanned pricing shifts and roadmap decisions outside customer control—have introduced new risk into enterprise infrastructure environments.
Rising VMware licensing costs, as reported by ITPro and CIO.com, are creating operational pressure as organizations work to keep environments stable. Customers are prioritizing predictable pricing, greater control, flexibility, and long-term investment protection—without costly rebuilds. That pressure is mounting as teams approach critical decision points, needing an alternative strategy before hardware reaches end of support or existing VMware perpetual licenses expire, further compressing already tight timelines.
DIY Future-Proofing Is Slowing Progress
At the same time, many organizations are attempting to future-proof on their own. Teams are testing hardware configurations for VMware and alternative stacks, manually converting systems, and migrating workloads without guided processes. While resourceful, this approach is slow, risky, and taxing for already stretched teams. Complexity—not technology—has become the biggest barrier to progress.
More importantly, customers recognize that this is not a one-time event. The VMware experience has underscored a broader reality: similar shifts can happen again, with any platform. As a result, IT leaders are no longer just reacting to change—they are actively seeking infrastructure strategies that preserve choice, reduce exposure to future disruption, and keep them in control.
“Build Your Own” Is No Longer Sustainable
Feedback from IT leader is the same: “We don’t have time for trial and error.” Yet, without a clear path forward, teams are forced into Build Your Own (BYO) migration paths that consume months of effort and introduce unnecessary risk. Hardware reuse isn’t guaranteed, workflows aren’t clean, and validation takes longer than expected. Meanwhile, business priorities don’t stop—uptime, security, and transformation remain critical.
Introducing ThinkAgile FX: A Simpler Path Forward
ThinkAgile FX is a flexible Hyperconverged Infrastructure (HCI) solution designed to safeguard your infrastructure investments. It delivers a unified, validated experience that ensures you can run one integrated Software Vendors (ISV) today, pivot to an alternative software stack tomorrow, and preserve the value of the hardware you already own. No unnecessary complexity. No starting over. Instead of fragmented BYO efforts and guesswork, ThinkAgile FX provides a single, streamlined approach that combines flexibility, control, and investment protection—all in one HCI appliance.
- Reuse your Lenovo hardware confidently
- Validated configurations, expert led end-to-end conversion processes
- Collapse multi-step DIY efforts into a single-order experience
Figure 1. ThinkAgile FX Platform Overview
Business Value of ThinkAgile FX
ThinkAgile FX gives you the confidence to stay on VMware today, switch later if needed and minimize the operational and financial cost of rebuilding.
- Avoid vendor lock-in: Protect capital infrastructure investment by picking the HCI stack that fits your needs, no disruption, avoid risk
- Effortless Conversion: Convert with confidence between ISV and effortlessly move workloads
- Appliance-grade Simplicity: Eliminate IT complexity with easy procurement, deployment lifecycle management and monitoring
In a year full of sudden changes, the strongest strategy has become simple: protect your investment, expand your options, and stay in control of your future.
Author
Ritu Jain is a Senior Product Manager at Lenovo, leading worldwide product management for ThinkAgile HX and ThinkAgile FX, and playing a key role in driving Lenovo’s overall ThinkAgile product strategy. With 13+ years of experience in software-defined, converged, and hyperconverged infrastructure, she focuses on delivering platforms that provide flexibility, operational simplicity, and long-term investment protection for enterprise customers.
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