Pure Storage is giving away FREE flash arrays – but there's a catch

Pure Storage is offering a free flash array to new customers who take out a support contract. Pure_Offer_2 Channel e-mail from Pure According to a channel e-mail The Register has seen (above), this special offer ends on October 30th. We asked Pure whether this was true and International PR manager Julie André said: "We …

[Your alien overlord - fear me]

Support contracts are always more lucrative than hardware sales.

[returnofthemus]

From start-up all the way to IPO ...

for nothing, aren't you glad you bought shares?

[Anonymous Coward]

So good they have to give it away

If the product was as good as they say it is they wouldn't have to give it away or discount the crap out of it.

Have some respect.

[Terry P]

I think

I think these are the old models?

[Anonymous Coward]

Listen to Admiral Ackbar

It's a trap.

[Anonymous Coward]

It is the old models, which are still rock solid. If they have them sitting around, why not give them away and secure new customers? Brilliant. Not like EMC is not giving away gear....

[unredeemed]

If they give it away, they can call it a sale and recognize the FULL revenue value more than likely. smoke and mirrors for investors...

[Anonymous Coward]

errr

I thought that Sarbanes Oxley put a stop to that kind of revenue reporting ummmm like 10 years ago?

They will be able to recognize the revenue whatever is on the order from the customer. No more.

[Anonymous Coward]

"We are trying to blow the doors off new logo's"

What does that mean in English?

[decoy_underpants]

"New Logo's" Means new customers.

[M0neysh0tm1ke]

Something Smells Purely Odd

How could they possibly have so much inventory of the old systems? Are they broken returned arrays? For a company that says they are blowing revenue out, why would they do this?

You can only sell ice to Eskimos once.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Something Smells Purely Odd

Playing devils advocate here it's not as if there has been an announcement on their website - we have an email supposedly from one account rep or team to a partner or someone else?

Given the date was the 21st and their end of quarter is the 31st I don't think they have thousands of them but it seems a good idea to shift it if you can.

[Anonymous Coward]

That email smells like BS to me

Not sure why everyone is taking this supposedly "genuine" email from a Pure rep at face value.

Seems like total made up BS to me. It takes all of 1 minute to create a "real" looking forwarded email. Happy to share an email with y'all that I umm... received... from EMC PR that announce Donald Trump as the new CEO of DELL-EMC, so that you bored rumour junkies can have something else to talk about.

Get real people. Why would a newly IPO company, with revenue to report in just a few weeks, be giving away free gear, especially into new accounts.

Let's see some real evidence y'all.

[Stephen McLaughlin]

Good Strategy

If they have older inventory that needs to move, this is a good strategy. It will be very difficult to keep going at their 200% growth rate for a prolonged period and new customers are the key. I've been impressed with their flash arrays and think once they get in more data centers other IT folks will be impressed as well. They really offer a more affordable solution to EMC.

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing to see here

Vendor with a new product gives old product away to clear inventory... and pretends it's doing customers a favor...

Move along.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Nothing to see here

So I get free product, upgrade at no add'l capital outlay in 3 yrs to current model....sign me up! The 400 series are rock solid. Beats spending 200k a pop for xbricks.

[Kev99]

Sounds like thesame deal Valentine Industries had in "Kingsman".

[Anonymous Coward]

Free up front, but still a taxing TCO

unless you are stern and disciplined enough to throw this away once the 12 months' warranty ends (you're not), you should be looking at a TCO - total cost of operation.

Storage TCO's are best calculated over 5 years. Sometimes 4, rarely 3 (due to migration, scalability, etc.).

The 5 year TCO for this product is still way beyond the competitive equivalents on the market today and the price points cross in less than 18 months.

How do I know? I've been involved with storage technologies for 18 years and currently consult and sell several storage product lines. Free is not free. You can get better performance and scalability for less elsewhere.

No, I don't work with, sell or recommend EMC products.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Free up front, but still a taxing TCO

Main article says they have flat maintenance pricing.

Isn't the TCO going to be......that maintenance cost each year?

[ewwhite]

So *how* do I get one?

And really, what are Pure's recurring support costs on this line of product?

The hybrid and all-flash storage market pricing is all over the place.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: So *how* do I get one?

The pricing is all over the place but everyone is selling more or less the same architecture... Its been like like reverso world around here these last few years

[Anonymous Coward]

I checked with pricing. They weren't really budging much. Their smallest FA-405 array was still well over $60k with support.