White box servers? We can do that, says HP Enterprise chief

The Far Eastern white box makers are sucking up some server volumes in Europe at the expense of the big brands – but that’s just fine, according to Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s EMEA chief. Stats from IDC revealed that in Q2 the ODMs (original design manufacturers) grew unit sales and revenues by 40 and 42 per cent respectively …

[Mikel]

Weather report

So apparently the new HPE chief can read the weather report and dress appropriately. That's a change. Formerly they would have loudly protested that winter is not coming and my, aren't these shorts and sandals fashionable?

[Jim O'Reilly]

Yes Ryan, Whiteboxes are really cheap!

HP's Ryan hasn't quite got it. The whiteboxes account for 7 percent unit share because they are so cheap. If they are only 2 percent of revenue, that means they are roughly 1/3rd of the price.

If sales continue to grow at the current pace, or even turn up, whiteboxes will break the back of HP's pricing scheme when they reach roughly 40 percent share.At that point, the price per unit will drop drastically for all vendors and whitebox revenue as a share will move up.

What Ryan is dissing is in fact the ultimate demise of HP's server business!

[Rainer]

Anyone actually used the HP "Cloud Line" boxes?

Our sales-rep didn't know much about them, other than you need to order 50 or 100 at a time (don't remember which).

Though, them being so new, the only thing that could be reported is probably the number of DOA-units ;-)

Would be worth an El Reg hardware-review, IMO.

[Anonymous Coward]

Cloudy with a touch of sauce

Do these Cloudline things exist other than on paper? Or are they simply an opportunity to upsell to Proliant, or bait+swap to HP managed cloudiness ?

[friet]

Cloudline servers ..

Well first and for all, Cloudline requires a yearly uptake of 10K units (that number could have changed, but don't bet on it). So not for the small providers.

Second if you are wondering if anyone is using them, I suggest you visit one of Microsoft's European data centers.... :-) (Yes, I work for Hewlett Packard Enterprise..so I am biased).

Now, HPE already has a series of lower cost servers (DL60/80 series, DL160/180) and some boxes designed for specific workloads (the Apollo series), that don't require you to buy the servers by the truckload..

The strange thing is, although HPE has all those 'cheaper' boxes available, customers, even service providers, all ask and buy the more expensive DL3xx series.. think twice about that..