Broadcom Inc. announced that it has completed its acquisition of VMware, Inc. VMware's common stock will now cease to be traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).

Starting today, VMware will operate as VMware by Broadcom. 

"Today I am thrilled to announce Broadcom’s successful acquisition of VMware, and the start of a new and exciting era for all of us at the company," writes Broadcom president and CEO Hock Tan.  "VMware joins our engineering-first, innovation-centric team, which is another important step forward in building the world’s leading infrastructure technology company."

"While an important moment for Broadcom, it’s also an exciting milestone for our customers around the world. And as I said when we first announced the acquisition, we can now come together and have the scale to help global enterprises address their complex IT infrastructure challenges by enabling private and hybrid cloud environments and helping them deploy an “apps anywhere” strategy. Our goal is to help customers optimize their private, hybrid and multi-cloud environments, allowing them to run applications and services anywhere."

The merger overcame its final hurdle this week after China granted regulatory approval.  And Broadcom received legal merger clearance in Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, the European Union, Israel, Japan, South Africa, South Korea, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, and foreign investment control clearance in all necessary jurisdictions. 

The acquisition is one of the largest in the tech industry.  What happens now is a wait and see game.  How does this affect VMware (the company, the technology, the partnerships and the client base) and what affect will it have on VMware employees?

Prior to the closing, employees were uncertain which product lines Broadcom would continue to support post-acquisition, and whether or not they themselves would have a job afterward.  Around the August time frame, speculations were out there that major layoffs at VMware would be forthcoming.  VMware employees were on LinkedIn expressing their concern after it was said that VMware employees were supposedly told they may have three options in a post acquisition world: severance, a new offer of employment from Broadcom, or a short-term contract as part of a transition plan once their role terminated in the future.

Tan insists that Broadcom is committed to supporting and growing VMware's business and plans, and said they would invest $2 billion a year in the company. 

He wrote, "Broadcom is committed to innovation. That’s in our DNA and why we plan to invest significantly each year to advance VMware’s innovation and customer value. Half of the investment will be focused on R&D, and the other half will help accelerate the deployment of solutions through VMware and partner professional services. We are committed to creating value and driving revenue for our robust partner ecosystem, which has been made stronger with the addition of VMware’s partners."

In a press release about the acquisition closing, the company stated: "Broadcom's focus moving forward is to enable enterprise customers to create and modernize their private and hybrid cloud environments. At the core, Broadcom will invest in VMware Cloud Foundation, the software stack that serves as the foundation of private and hybrid clouds. Incremental to Broadcom's investment in VMware Cloud Foundation, VMware will offer a rich catalog of services to modernize and optimize cloud and edge environments, including VMware Tanzu to help accelerate deployment of applications, as well as Application Networking (Load Balancing) and Advanced Security services, and VMware Software-Defined Edge for Telco and enterprise edges."

This is day 0, so everyone is watching what's next.