Sales of HP’s flagship XP disk array in EMEA are stagnant, while shipments of the company’s mid-range EVA continue to show double-digit quarterly growth, according to Martin Regli, HP EMEA’s director of enterprise storage marketing.

To be honest, we’re struggling with the XP. The numbers are not growing like they are for the EVA, Regli said. Sales of the XP in EMEA are totaling around 50 to 70 sales per quarter, compared to around 500 to 700 for the EVA, he said.

Regli’s comments may reflect the fact that HP has more interest in talking up the EVA because the device is made by HP, unlike the XP which is a re-branded Lightning array made by Hitachi Ltd. However there is already an established trend for buyers to move away from high-end disk arrays towards modular hardware.

Currently HP sells the XP with a high-high pricing strategy also used by the triad of high-end storage vendors, EMC Corp, IBM Corp and Hitachi Ltd. High-high means attaching high list prices to hardware, and then applying high discounts during sales negotiations. Regli described the strategy as long-established, and well understood by buyers. We haven’t seen any push-back from customers on the strategy. They know about it, and these guys’ performance is measured in terms of the discount they can get from vendors, he said.

Customers may be happy with the status quo, but HP is not so sure that it is. We’re really thinking about our pricing strategy, Regli said. As high-end storage begins to commoditize, how much longer can suppliers continue to apply a high-high policy? Good question. We don’t know yet, but we’re taking a look at it, he answered.

For its mid-range and low-end storage, HP like others applies a low-low pricing strategy in which list prices are set with low discounts in mind. This is not likely to change, and is certainly not going to be swapped for a high-high policy. High-high could never work for high-volume products going through the channel. It’s too complicated, Regli said.

Describing the condition of the European market for high-end IT in general Regli said: It could definitely be better. The UK, Germany and France – the three biggest markets – are struggling. Switzerland and the Nordic countries are still seeing double-digit growth, but that hardly compensates, he said.

Source: Computerwire