Avnet in HP refurbish deal

Distributor Avnet Partner Solutions has been appointed to move refurbished HP high-end servers and storage hardware products under a worldwide initiative dubbed HP Renew.

Under the agreement – an initiative to crank up sales of refurbished equipment, Avnet will market a range of three to six month old HP-UX, OpenVMS, AlphaServers, Intel-based Proliant systems and network-storage and SAN products to its reseller base.

Bill Allan, re-marketing specialist at Avnet Partner Solutions quoted worldwide research conducted by CIO.com that suggested 77 percent of companies surveyed buy second-hand or used IT equipment.

Selling refurbished equipment would be suitable for resellers that are dealing with price-conscious customers, he said.

The HP refurbished equipment is generally demonstration stock or manufacturing over-runs, he said. Refurbishments are being done at a new HP centre in Singapore with the product shipped to Avnet.

He claimed that this was a US$400 million business globally for HP and in Australia it could be worth between $10 and $20 million across the whole range of products.

The equipment ships with the standard three-year warranty and would attract a 50 to 60 percent discount for the end user customer with the reseller retaining good margins, Allan claimed.