Deal sees HP in Stratus? sphere

Hewlett Packard has struck a deal with fault-tolerant systems vendor Stratus Computer to resell its products through HP?s channel, as HP seeks to bolster its existing high-availability product set.

HP will resell Stratus Continuum Series 400 fault-tolerant systems along with its HP-UX Unix on the HP 9000 server range through Hamilton Rental, Morse, Prestige and P&P, which will be focusing on the finance, telecoms and utilities markets.

HP will also sell direct to its installed base, but hopes to push over half the Stratus equipment through its corporate resellers.

Hewlett Packard already has a high-availabilty product range, but Geoff Hogg, product manager in charge of Stratus products at HP, and Nick Preston, UK MD of Stratus, insisted there was no potential conflict between the two ranges. They claimed the products would complement each other.

?Certain niche customers require more than the 95 per cent high availability that we currently offer,? said Hogg. ?A small but significant percentage require availablity the whole year round, and the Stratus systems will help us provide this.?

James Waller, divisional director for Morse Data, which will be reselling the product, said his company has trained three members of its sales team over the past two weeks in preparation for selling the Stratus equipment.