HP recommends third party 3000 support

ESG official makes case for BlueLine program

The supplier of HP 3000s has already announced its end of sales and support. Platinum migration partners are busy making proposals for customers moving from the computer platform. Now some officials inside HP are willing to send its 3000 customers to sources outside of HP to help continue support their HP 3000s.

HP hasn’t changed its 3000 recommendation to its customers; it still believes the best course is away from the venerable enterprise server. But a channel partner representative in the company’s Enterprise Systems Group is telling HP customers about support options from BlueLine Services, a Dallas-based HP 3000 support company and an authorized reseller of HP 9000 systems.

BlueLine’s president Bill Towe said his company has been working since early this year on getting HP’s blessing for its support business. It amounts to an HP recommendation to buy 3000 support from outside of HP, something of a first from a vendor which has a history of battling such third parties in court and otherwise.

Towe said his company has framed its support plans by positioning them as part of a migration strategy. “We approached HP with a plan to assist in migration from the HP 3000,” he said. “With HP’s blessing, we are going to be able to offer support to customers that are interested in migrating now, those who will not be able to complete a migration plan until past 12/06, and those who just plain don’t want to migrate. We will take care of them for good.”

Towe said that BlueLine has more HP 3000 inventory to back its support business than any other company in the US. It’s offering support for hardware and software, “but the best part is, HP is backing us in this program.”

HP said in its CIO-level Webcast in January that it’s “open to investigating the role that third-party partners might play in providing support, after HP’s end of support date” at the end of 2006. But for some customers in the US, the time has already arrived when HP is turning to third parties. David Lorino, BlueLine’s HP channel partner rep based in Tennessee and covering a Central US swath of states, said making a support reference to BlueLine is in the best interests of HP’s 3000 customers.

“BlueLine has got a plan and the expertise to fill a niche so they can support these folks,” Lorino said. “It’s one we’re directing a lot of efforts and opportunities toward. We’re making these customers available to BlueLine to offer these services.”

Lorino has multiple resellers to service in his capacity as Partner Business Manager for the Central US Region of HP’s ESG channel, “so we take something of a neutral position. We don’t want to position one reseller over another. But any opportunity we can take to direct [3000] customers to BlueLine, we do.”

BlueLine calls its program Extended Support, and it was first built around the concept of supporting the owners of Series 9x7 systems that HP cannot support today. That hardware fell off HP’s support price list during 2002, and the last operating system release which runs on 9x7s will also drop off support at the end of next year.

But Lorino said he’s not limiting his recommendations to just customers running the older 9x7 systems. Newer HP 3000s are also part of plan, including Series 9x9 systems which HP currently wants to renew on its own support contracts. He said the recommendations are “in close concert with the end-user sales team, which has a focused account list including 3000 customers. We have been taking BlueLine in with the end-user reps and introducing them.”

While the arrangement is a feather in BlueLine’s cap, it has value to the rest of a 3000 community that can feel like its vendor has turned away from them. HP apparently wants to spread some goodwill to help in sales later on to the 3000 customer.

“The ultimate goal is to sell new equipment, but not now,” Lorino said. “If it’s six months to two years, that’s fine. We want to make sure that they’re happy and supported, and that we’re doing something about that feeling of abandonment and anger that’s out there. We’re saying ‘no’ to the cold-turkey thing; there’s folks out there that will work with you.”

The arrangement didn’t start with a top-down meeting at the highest level of HP, but Towe said he worked on securing HP’s cooperation during the HP Americas Partner Conference held during February. Lorino said that BlueLine’s new status as an authorized reseller of HP 9000 system was a key to the arrangement.

“It’s important, because that’s how I’m working with BlueLine now, as a new authorized 9000 reseller,” he said. “We see the potential for them to solidify these relationships with the customer base for the next 18 months to two years, and at some point we’ll have a great opportunity to upgrade them.” Lorino said that BlueLine can make some business for HP happen right away, selling 3000 sites new storage solutions. “We need to keep these people happy until they are ready to migrate.”

The HP business manager’s initiative covers an area ranging from the northern border of the US to Texas, pushing the message out to the US HP 3000 field sales force led by Hank Wendrowski. A nationwide initiative would be the next step in HP’s third-party support recommendations, Lorino added.

“BlueLine has both coasts covered now, and they’re getting some critical mass going,” he said.