The European Commission (EC) has approved Broadcom’s $61 billion takeover deal of cloud computing firm VMware, providing that Broadcom address concerns about interoperability and access.

The deal is Broadcom's largest ever and will help the chipmaker diversify into enterprise infrastructure software.

VMware provides software which works with hardware including storage adaptors, host-bus adapters and network interface cards.

The EC was concerned that by buying VMware, Broadcom would restrict competition in hardware markets and harm rivals such as Marvell, which develops similar hardware to Broadcom.

The EC’s investigation found that Broadcom does not hold a strong position in the market for storage adapters and said the company will continue to face competition from several rival suppliers.

Broadcom has made a number of interoperability commitments to Marvell and potential future rivals. These include guaranteed access to source code for all of Broadcom’s drivers through an open source license and implementing and ensuring protection of confidential information provided by competitors.

The deal has faced scrutiny from a number of regulators both in the EU and the US.

“Broadcom holds a very strong position in the market for the supply of certain hardware components. VMware is a key server virtualisation software provider,” said Margrethe Vestager, executive vice-president in charge of competition policy.

“By acquiring VMware, Broadcom could restrict or degrade interoperability between VMware’s leading server virtualisation software and some competing hardware components. But the commitments offered by Broadcom will enable its only rival Marvell, to continue competing on equal footing and ensure a similar protection for any future entrants.”

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