Monday, February 10, 2014

HP Doesn’t Want Customers

I for 20 years have bought nothing but Compaq/HP Servers. As of February 19th 2014, HP will no longer allow free firmware updates for their servers. If after the warranty expires HP discovers an issue it issues a new firmware update to address the issues that were defective in the previous or original firmware.

Only now they’ll expect us to pay them for it, as if paying $12,000 for a new server didn’t net them one heck of a healthy profit. I’m a free market kind of guy, but this is utter crap and I’ll lay odds sales of HP servers goes down while Dell’s sales goes up since they still offer free updates as long as they have something to update. It’s almost as if HP is trying to lose business, lousy quality on printers, now this. I am moving from an HP fan to somebody who will now look at the competition first, not second…

Compaq was a great company, great support, very good products, servers built like tanks (Compaq is now the cheap line of computers from HP since the buy out). It looks like HP isn’t happy with BILLIONS in profit… nope now they want to soak us even more. You want free driver/firmware updates beyond the warranty, BUY their more expensive support packs! Well guess what, they RARELY write new firmware updates for as long as these support packs go so you’re wasting money on a gamble that just maybe something HP missed during development will be addressed 5 years or more later. The number cruncher that got this through I hope loses his job.

Maybe I’m being too picky? I’ve been doing this a very long time, the one thing you could depend on because you were paying premium dollars for these servers was they would issue firmware updates as needed not because WE screwed up but because THEY did and the firmware update is a fix for that screw up. OY.

A little snippet from the article -  “PC owners probably don’t give firmware updates much thought and rarely, if ever, seek them out directly. Enthusiasts and small businesses running low-end servers, on the other hand, have a keener interest in firmware since sometimes skipping an update can be fatal for their investment.

But getting those firmware updates for Hewlett-Packard’s servers are about to get a little more difficult. HP says that beginning next Wednesday, February 19, it will effectively start charging for access to firmware updates through the company’s support center. Only customers with an active warranty, an HP Care Pack subscription, or support agreement will be able to download the updates directly from HP.

Previously, HP firmware updates were freely available.” See the full article HERE.

I disagree with the article that “Enthusiasts and small business running low end servers have a keener interest”, enthusiasts sure but they don’t buy low end. You want to charge somebody who bought a server extra because they only forked out $350.00 for the cheapest box they could find, great, good luck with that but to hit everybody including people who spend as much on a server as some people spend on a new car, patently ridiculous.

These things are built in China, if I spend $12,000 (this believe it or not isn’t the high end!) on a new server the profit is well over 1,000% even after figuring the marketing channel and shipping etc… I hope Dell’s response to this is a marketing campaign explaining how they will not be doing this. Either way, HP is no longer first on my list for well, anything and that may not hurt them but I know a large amount of IT guys and I bet they feel the same way.

So long HP, you have been making the wrong choices A LOT lately and this last one nailed it. 

2 comments:

JO said...

I was a big HP person until about 3 years ago. I bought one of there touchSmart 300PC it worked for about 8mths and went to the blue screen of death. I had it looked at and they asked for a disk. what disk they don't give them anymore. They say you aren't suppose to need one remember. HMM over $900. just sitting here. I have had 2 HP laptops total garbage. I now have a Toshiba and I love it.

Jean said...

The title of this post is right on the money. I was a fan of HP printers for many years, buying them for work and home. They were always very reliable, but that's all changed in the last couple of years. The last three have been pretty worthless. (I'm not really that slow of a learner. They were all bought within a 30 day period.) HP won't be getting anymore of my business. Not one of those printers works as it should.