As Hewlett-Packard shuts down Upline — an online storage service — some pundits may wonder if HP is retreating from cloud-based computing and software as a service (SaaS). Certainly not. Rising from Upline’s ashes, HP is set to announce a new SaaS industry relationship within two days, The VAR Guy hears.
Alas, The VAR Guy can’t say much about HP’s forthcoming SaaS deal. But loyal readers should expect some news on March 4.
In the meantime, HP rivals and media are weighing in with views on Upline’s demise. Among the opinions worth checking out…
- TechCrunch recaps Upline and offers a great chart comparing the doomed HP service to mozy.com and carbonite.com.
- Sekar Vembu uses his own blog to fully explain quotes he offered to ChannelWeb.
- And CNet News tightly wraps up the story.
Interestingly, the Symantec Protection Network (SPN) blog apparently hasn’t offered its views on Upline’s demise — but HP’s loss certainly could be Symantec’s gain.
The VAR Guy wasn’t surprised by Upline’s demise. The online storage service hit serious bumps in 2008 and never received much marketing or branding. But a friendly reminder: Check back March 4 for more news about HP’s cloud/SaaS effort.
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Online storage. This is typical Internet stuff where everything is ‘free’. So in order to compete you have to supply services and support for free, because that is what the competitor charges and if you don’t do the same, you will not get any marketshare. This is why all the interconnects had to either fail or go out of business back a few years and this is why some ISPs are struggling today. How does one increase their revenues, while decreasing costs in a climate where the only way to get marketshare is to offer something for free? It takes a while to figure out a successful strategy, as some small VARs have figured it out already: ANSWER THE PHONE and speak English that any American can understand. You won’t capture the ‘free’ business marketshare, but you will capture a good share of the ‘I am sick of ‘free’ and talking to India and I want someone to answer the phone, who is knowledgeable, instead of someone who knows less than I do – Oh, and by the way, don’t change your company name every six months, it gives me a headache – and don’t act like you are about ready to file bankruptcy and not answer the phone and only offer online support only or offshore support and more than a 24 hour response time’ type of customer who is willing to pay a premium for the lack of frustration. Now granted, in this not the ‘buy from Walmart, I don’t care if it is Chinese made or not marketplace’ you are not going to get all of them, but you are going to get some of the folks who need an answer and quick and they will stay with you forever.