HP claims storage story is total baloney

HP IS PREPARING a response to an earlier INQ story about storage linked below. It unofficially claims that it is a dirty trick by competitors to hammer EVA sales, etc etc. While I am told an official response is in the works, here is what the story it is saying inside is.

I won't comment on it, take it as you will, but HP has not contacted me yet, ever for that matter, to tell me it is wrong. That said, I will stand by my story until I hear credible evidence that it is wrong. So far, I have only gotten re-affirmations that it is correct.

We will link the official response if I ever stumble across it. µ

Team:

It's the last month of Q4. We've moved into high gear. We're in the midst of trying to close every deal that we possibly can and so what does the "dirty tricks" department of our competitor do? Put out yet another rumor that EVA is dead. I don't know about you, but I'm getting tired of addressing this one. (Doesn't the timing of this article seem very suspicious to anyone else but me?)

It really does surprise me how often the press falls for this one….. nonetheless, this latest e-mail is making the rounds. You will be asked by customers to comment on it so I thought I'd give you something to respond with. A formal response from the Division will be out shortly but I didn't want you to have to wait. These things are better dealt with just as soon as they surface, rather than letting them fester while you await a response. Trust me, the retraction is NEVER as widely distributed as the false information.

Here is the pointer to the article. http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=18991

I think of these articles like viruses that you see on the web. They're dirty, nasty things that can cause a lot of damage and serve no productive purpose. These types of rumors are put together by folks, who would rather compete through underhanded means, than competing on the basis of the technology and value proposition that their products bring to the table. They feed misleading information to reporters so that the virus will infect the system. These very same competitors will then circulate the article as a "proofpoint" of the "doom and gloom" that is about to engulf us. (You think that I'm kidding? The first memo that came across my radar screen was a memo that was sent by someone that works for one of our competitors to a Partner of ours.)

This article does not represent responsible journalism. It is a mixture of 35 different topics, put in a blender and then presented as "fact". There is no truth to the statement that hp is backing away from EVA. Zero. The Next Generation EVA is on track and in fact just last week I selected the beta test sites for the Americas.

A few months ago, the rumor around "the death of EVA" surfaced and was first brought to our attention by CRN. I went over the facts with Joe Kovar and he rightly concluded that there was no merit to the rumor and that it would not be responsible to publish something that was patently false. Obviously (and unfortunately) the individual who wrote this article does not have the same level of journalistic ethics.

We are investing in the Storage business, not disinvesting. The proofpoints of this are many: We just spent well over $1.3M putting together the Storage event in Houston. (And will be holding another one in the April/May timeframe.) We just had our Chairman and CEO stand up in front of 1,200 people and say that we were committed to Storage -- and in fact outline the roadmap for where we were going in the future. The Grid StorageWorks architecture that this reporter is so maligning, truly leads the industry in thought leadership. (By the way, instead of speaking foolishness, he might have considered what the code name Geneva breaks down to….. Gen EVA. Hellooo?)

During the last 4 months we have increased the number of Storage Specialists/SAs in the Americas by 30%. Over the next 6 months we'll increase it yet again by another 30%.

As to the EVA specifically: To date we've sold over 10,000 EVAs. This quarter alone in the Americas we'll sell over 500 of them. Even to this day, none of our major competitors has been able to bring to market a Virtual Array Storage System. Not one of them. (So if you can't compete on the basis of technology and value why not compete on the basis of FUD?) The EVA represents the second largest amount of profit ($$) in our Storage business. (By the way, he was wrong on this point too, the profitability of the XP (%) is actually comparable to the EVA). More than 2/3 of our On-line R&D spend (in one way or another) is deployed to support our EVA business.

I would be more than glad to speak to any customer/prospect that you have that has any concerns around the misstatements that were made in this article.

Regards,
Mark
Vice President,
Enterprise Storage and Server Sales