HP ProLiant Server Firmware Availability

[kirashi]

Customers for life

This week, HP announced that effective February 19, 2014, we will provide firmware updates through the HP Support Center only to customers with a valid warranty, Care Pack Service or support agreement. 

 

This decision reinforces our goal to provide access to the latest HP firmware, which is valuable intellectual property, for our customers who have chosen to maximize and protect their IT investments.  We know this is a change from how we’ve done business in the past; however, this aligns with industry best practices and is the right decision for our customers and partners.

 

Our customers under warranty or support coverage will not need to pay for firmware access, and we are in no way trying to force customers into purchasing extended coverage.  That is, and always will be, a customer’s choice. 

 

At the end of the day, we want you to know that you can continue to count on HP. And we will continue to provide an easily accessible way for our customers to download firmware updates.  Our intention is to offer differentiated and long-term value in the products and services we provide. 

 

If you would like more information please click our FAQ here.

 

**UPDATE**

I provide more context for the decision, answer some questions and hope to address some of the concerns you raised on this article.

Obviously this isn't a huge concern for consumers, but anyone running ProLiant servers from HP better make sure they have an active Service Contract if they're expecting any Boot ROM updates not related to security. This poses a question however, and one that very well might happen in the future, both stifling creativity and advancing the open source market:

 

How long until consumers won't be able to download drivers or non-critical service patches without a valid warranty? This includes products you've even purchased a warranty for, but has expired/run out.

Forgive me if this has already been posted, as I searched far and wide and it doesn't seem to be posted yet.