News HP moves BIOS upgrades behind warranty wall

To be honest, I would not want to purchase services for any company who didn't have active warranties on their hardware. We replace our servers every 3 years after our carepack has expired.
I did however notice this change last week, tried to download a CRITICAL security patch for iLO 3/4, however soon found out we had to sign in to download the patch.
This is actually a problem, if a known critical issue is affecting servers, it should be offered to all customers past and present.
I think even microsoft patched critical issues even in pirated versions of windows didn't they?

 

HP goes far beyond consumer products (computers & printers etc) and enterprise hardware, the consumer market is probably a small fraction of where they make their money. They're certainly not that fussed about selling PCs to your regular joe consumer, maybe printers still makes them money but i bet its still chump change compared to government contracts.

Just looking on Wikipedia:
Net income: US$ 5.113 billion (2013)
Total assets: US$ 105.676 billion (2013)

Agilent (my semi-retired father works for them, as HP from '79 - '99, Agilent '99 - to date)
Net income: US$1.15 Billion (FY 2012)
Total assets: US$10.5 Billion (FY 2012)

Not bad really when you can split a division of your company with a $1.15b net income, 1/5th of what HP itself produces.
I think they'll be fine without ever having to sell another product to the consumer, and the only HP stuff i've ever had has been bought from a store like anyone else (Microserver and the odd Deskjet over the years, but certainly not fussed if its HP, Dell, or any other name as long as its a decent product).

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Still think its a stupid move, but i guess i can see their reasoning, but at what point does this stop, does MSI & co stop providing drivers for its Mobo's outside of their warranty? After all, they're providing these files as part of their service, and if that products service contract has expired then do they owe you service? In some cases - maybe, but i'd imagine not as a general rule, just like SoGA expects coverage for a reasonable lifespan, whether its sold with 1yr or 5yr, but thats probably a very rare case for hardware failure/issues due to bios/driver issues which should be expected to be issue free and arent because the user is being denied the fix.

In the example of the network problems for WS2012, i think theres reasonable expectation for them to make that fix available, their hardware simply doesnt work correctly when trying to install it, it either fails if the card is enabled, or cant complete the installation wizard without the presence of a network card, so its impossible without a fix, on an inherent issue which shouldnt exist. Its not fit for the purpose it was sold.
Wanting access to the files for performance benefits is something else, but how do you prove entitlement to a bios, or more specifically to your need for access to a fix, rather than wanting it for another benefit and using a WS2012 type issue as the excuse.

 

I reckon in the UK/EU they will run into issues, as one could claim that as the BIOS has a known issue and you as the user is encountering those issues then the BIOS is not fit for purpose under the sale of goods act.

I am not a lawyer but if you were to argue this way and go via the small claims court if they still refused then it would cost them more to defend than it would to just give you the fix.

If I had issues that's the way i'd go.