While HP has added lots of value in the highest section of its e3000 product line, the N-Class systems have a warranty with a longer response time than their predecessors. The older 99X or Emerald Class systems have been sold with a same-day response on service; HP is continuing to sell these e3000s through this year, though demand has fallen off considerably. The newer N-Class e3000s carry a warranty with a response time of next-day, something the 3000 division did to make its support products more uniform. According to Kevin Cooper of CSY’s R&D labs and liaison to the HP Service organization, the change pulls e3000 support in line with service levels offered outside of the US.

“In the past (for the 900 Series), different areas of the world received different levels of warranty support for the same HP e3000 servers,” Cooper said. “With the introduction of the A- and N-class servers, HP has now made this support consistent worldwide. Up until now in the US we offered same-day warranty. In the rest of the world, we provided next-day warranty. In order to streamline how we manage HP e3000 warranties within HP, we decided to change the US warranty on the HP e3000 A-Class and N-Class servers to be consistent with the rest of the world. So we now include next-day support everywhere worldwide. Support options do exist on both product lines that allow customers to upgrade their hardware support levels during the warranty period to same-day or even 24x7 support. This way each customer can choose what level of support best meets their needs during the hardware warranty period."