HP To Include Blades In Value Big Deals

Hewlett-Packard plans to include its BladeSystem portfolio in its value big deal special-pricing process beginning Feb. 1.

Previously, only enterprise products such as business-critical servers and enterprise storage were part of the value special-pricing process. HP has a separate volume special-pricing program for PCs and industry-standard servers, and BladeSystems were included in that pricing program.

After Feb. 1, solution providers can include blade servers in either the volume or the value program, depending on the deal.

Mike Galane, HP’s director of partner programs for Enterprise Servers and Storage (ESS), said the pricing program change, disclosed Monday, was being made because blades servers often are a critical part of an HP enterprise value sale.

“Today, value partners that want to include blades in the deal, they actually have to break the deal up and send the blade part through the volume big deal desk,” Galane said. “This change provides a lot more flexibility.”Solution providers said the move should simplify value big deal pricing. “We’ve done a number of blade deals recently [that were included as part of an enterprise solution], and there were two separate processes to do them: one volume and one value,” said Tim Joyce, president of Roundstone Systems, an HP enterprise solution provider in Alameda, Calif. “This will make it more consistent because those products [blades] are really value products.”