HP clarifies broker status

Officials at HP have clarified comments they made to the NewsWire for our May article regarding the new broker program for used equipment — saying the program establishes a single new distributor, not new resale points, for used HP 3000s. HP’s original comments came from Commercial Systems Division (CSY) general manager Harry Sterling.

“He wasn’t intimately involved in all the details of the program,” said CSY marketing manager Christine Martino. “Now that it’s getting to the point where it’s ready to announce, everyone has a handle on what this really means. In getting the program off the ground and having just a few people involved, there’s been misunderstandings amongst us,” Martino said.

“Anybody who’s an authorized reseller in North America will now have access to our used equipment,” said CSY R&D manager Winston Prather. “If somebody wants to be an authorized reseller, they have the opportunity to do that through our distributors.” HP doesn’t have an exclusive contract with its emerging used-hardware distributor Phoenix 3000 (see our front page story). But Martino said HP has no plans or desire to establish another such distributor. “I don’t think the market’s big enough to have more than one,” she said.

Our May article stated that the forthcoming used channel resellers would be able to reset user license limits or change HP 9000s to HP 3000s. Phoenix 3000 won’t have access to the SS_CONFIG program needed to do this. Phoenix will be able to purchase MPE/iX user-license level upgrades from HP. In this process, a distributor uses an SS_CONFIG key from HP to do the upgrade.

Martino also noted that HP has decided not to publish policies regarding license transfers. “We don’t have plans to publish any policies beyond those already available in our terms and conditions of our sales and services contracts,” she said. Customers with questions about license transfers can call HP’s information line at 408.447.4185. Prather said HP’s process hasn’t changed regarding license transfers.