Clock ticks low on rebates

End comes soon for 9x7 trade-in discounts; 9x9s, 9x8s come off price list

HP wants customers to see the future of its e3000 product line is now, judging from timetables for its rebate programs and sales plans for older K-Class Series 900 systems. While some of the rebates have a little more than two months of life left, computers introduced as late as last year will be history much sooner.

Coupled with advancing dates for end of support on the 9x9s, the schedule shows HP moving forward quickly with its transition to the A-Class and N-Class systems — and leaving customers who stay behind with systems whose value is declining just as rapidly.

Series 997 two-processor servers will drop off the HP price list by the start of September, along with upgrade kits to move Series 992, 995 and 996 Servers to the Series 997 models. HP says it’s got a limited number of the HP-HSC Bus Converters needed for these upgrades and the 997, and when they’re gone, the old Emerald top of the HP 3000 line will be done, too. Customers will only be able to buy add-on processor boards for 997s through May of next year.

Also on September 1, HP plans to stop selling the rest of its model lineup from earlier this year. All 9x9 systems, including the top-end 989/x50 servers, as well as upgrade kits to move models to the 939/030 systems and to 979 systems, will cease sales. By June 1, 2002, all processor boards will be off the HP price list for all 9x9 systems, too.

Sales of the Series 918 and 928 servers will also end on Sept. 1. HP reports that few of the older computers, on any part of the lineup, have been selling since the newer A- and N-Class models were rolled out in March. But HP will be executing a tight crossover of its model lines: The version of MPE/iX that will enable the first multiple-processor N-Class systems is not expected to ship before the current multiprocessor HP 3000s are pulled from price lists. For at least a few weeks in September, it won’t be possible to take delivery on any multiprocessor HP 3000s.

Those brisk sales of the newer computers may be getting an extra spark from HP’s rebates for older systems. Nearly everything in the 9x7, 9x8 and 9x9 lineup qualifies for some kind of rebate until October. HP has announced that Oct. 31 will be the last day for any 9x7 system to be worth anything in a Trade Up.

Even the lowly Series 917 is worth $300 towards purchase of an A400 system, according to the TradeUp 2001 matrix distributed to the resellers in July. The same system was worth $10,000 in trade in the matrix if a customer was moving all the way up to a 4-way N4000-550 server.

HP wasn’t providing many rebates for Series 9x9 owners who want to move to A-Class systems or the bottom of the N-Class lineup, according to its latest matrix. But the Series 929, 939, 959 or 969 systems were worth between $9,000 and $30,000 in rebates. The top of the line was an $85,000 credit for an eight-processor Series 997 with 100 or more user licenses when buying a 3- or 4-way N4000-550 system.

The rebates combine the server and user license figures in the TradeUp 2001 plan. Servers must have Software License Transfer paperwork available to qualify for the rebates. HP is paying extra to owners who have 100 or more user licenses on their older systems.

There’s also another ownership requirement to qualify for the TradeUp cash. The HP 3000 must be owned by an end-user customer for at least one year prior to returning it to HP. Officials from the e3000 division said the one-year ownership requirement “is designed to reduce any possible abuse of the program.” All returned servers must be functioning, bootable HP 3000s with at least the minimum amount of memory and storage installed and valid user licenses.