News HP moves BIOS upgrades behind warranty wall

Hoooo boy, that's a lawsuit waiting to happen!

 

Most people wont even relise its the bios thats the fault. ( 99% of buyers of hp products wont relise its a bios fault)

 

Dastardly manoeuvre to try and increase revenues, I bet those idiotic HP execs must be rubbing their hands with glee. This type of innovation deserves to sink any company implementing without trace, not that that will happen!

As a microserver owner here's hoping it massively backfires in their faces. Similar to other forum members, since the only support I require is the firmware downloads (never contact their support etc) I do not see the value nor buy their stupid after care packages.

For someone in my position whether they charge for this service or it leads to scaling down or termination (unlikely I know) of the department makes no difference; I won't be able to get any new firmware anyway!

 

Won't the firmware downloads just start appearing in other, less wholesome locations?

 

That's just the way it is for a lot enterprise stuff particularly on the software side, annual service contracts and licensing, when you supply relatively small amounts of hardware/software this sort of approach is needed to keep the effort financially viable.

 

Yeah id piss off the only sector that is keeping your sorry ass afloat...

Excellent strategy.

 

I think this is a good move.
Hopefully if the kit is a certian age then they won't supply warrenty.

 

Aren't the majority of Firmware updates required on this sort of equipment issued in response to defects found in the original BIOS and not used to add additional functionality?

Regardless I shall now be looking at other micro server options when I get home, I don't think I shall be buying any more HP kit in the future (I already dislike their printers due to several bad experiences).

 

Yep. A nice time to register a site in Russia and start hosting them. Not that I would do that for advertising revenue...

 

Fixed it for you

-Tuthmose

 

I am waiting for this to be extended to their consumer line.

Oh, and drivers. Just waiting on drivers also to be stuck behind a warranty pay wall (unless of course that is what they mean about firmware).

HP Drivers and BIOS updates appearing on pirate sites in 3...2...1...

 

My guess is that Lenovo and Dell really like this news.

 

Luckily *most* components rely on standardised drivers that can be found elsewhere [GPU, chipset etc.]

Though as faug points out, Dell et al. if they have any sense could capitalise on this...


EDIT: though if for some reason this doesn't come back to bite HP... you can expect other OEMs to follow suit...

 

*Rushes to HP website to download updates for MicroServer before 19th February deadline*

 

Depends what they mean by "firmware updates," really. I've never used the equipment in question, so this is by way of a question, really: are they talking about major new features, or is it just glitch fixing?

If the former case, well, maybe fair enough. If the latter, not so much.

 

@Phil: any BIOS updates, RAID card firmware updates etc. Simply put, you won't see the download page for the product you own if it is out of warranty.

 

Well that's it then HP putting a gun to their own head and pulling the trigger. That's the dumbest idea ever to screw money out of customers. I can see HP filing for bankruptcy in a couple of years, the damage to their reputation is complete.

I remember a few years ago they were caught putting a cut off switch into their printer cartridges so after a certain amount of time they just stopped working regardless if they had been used much or not. They were sued over that one and it's not like they were cheap to replace either. Since then I've steered clear of HP products. HP has now shown it's true colours, money for nothing yet again, if everyone else just stops buying their products they will learn the hard way.

 

But for the Microservers, don't most people already use the modified BIOS - which is freely available on other sites - anyway? Or are HP going to start issuing cease and desist notices on any site that hosts a modified BIOS file...