HP Seeks to Block Competitor From Revealing Its Pricing

Matt Asay writes "On October 13, 2008, Hewlett-Packard sent a complaint to an open-source competitor, GroundWork, asking GroundWork to stop revealing HP's 'confidential' pricing. CNET has posted the letter, which indicates that HP doesn't want its pricing revealed, but which doesn't question the veracity of the pricing (which, not surprisingly, is 82 percent higher than the open-source vendor's). Does HP think its pricing is really a secret? It's publicly available at GSA Advantage. Guess what? HP software costs a lot of money, but presumably feels that it can justify the high prices. Why try to hide the pricing information?"

Comments

Differential Pricing?

[msgmonkey]

Maybe the price of the software varies significantly from customer to customer. I mean if you just found out that you paid 2x as much for software mentioned here you'd be pretty annoyed.

Plus there is always corporate paranoia..

Re:Differential Pricing?

[wisty]

Companies don't like to release pricing, because then they would be more compelled to compete on price.

Re:Differential Pricing?

[betterunixthanunix]

Actually, they do not like to release pricing because it would take away one of the best bargaining pieces they have: the ability to lower the price during a sales meeting. Enterprise vendors love to tell a customer that they are going to lower the price by 50%, 60%, 80%, etc., because in the end, it works out for everybody. The customer goes back thinking they got a deal and the vendor still turns a profit (because the list price is marked up significantly). Once you are forced to reveal your list price to the world, it becomes more difficult to convince your customers that you are even willing to give them a discount or negotiate, because they have already seen the price and assume that is what they will be charged. The order in which things are revealed to a customer will determine whether or not that customer is willing to close the deal and buy the product.

Re:Differential Pricing?

[theaveng]

So HP salespeople are deceitful, trying to mislead customers into making them feel they got a good bargain (even though they paid exactly what everyone else pays). Sorry but I prefer honesty. I prefer openness. Same as any other retailer like Walmart or JCPenney. The list price is there for all to see, and not hidden behind a bunch of marketing BS, and sleight of hand.

I'd tell HP to go frak off. If I want to tell my friends, colleagues, whoever that I was able to get HP software for 50% off the list price, that's my right of free speech to do so. If HP does not like it, then too bad. My mouth is my mouth and I will continue using it no matter what the HP CEO thinks about it. He can bend over and sck my ___ for all I care.

Stupid arrogant corporations. I hate them. They are becoming modern-day versions of kings & tyrants.

Re:Differential Pricing?

[sumdumass]

The problem with that theory is the effect it has with people who look at the pricing and say "there are some other solutions that work well enough at cheaper prices".

I would think that software marked at twice their real world value would scare a lot of people away before the chance to bargain ever comes into play. You don't really want people to consider other people's/company's software before yours just because of a marketing ploy. That's actually what is happening in this case with HP claiming confidentiality except the marketing ploy is another company's. You have a lot less control over other people and companies then you do over your own so unless your the only provider of the software, I wouldn't think it would be beneficial.

Re:Differential Pricing?

[jellomizer]

Well Pissing off bad customers gets the effect of bad press towards you. However rewarding good customers will improve the chances that they will give good press to you. Even if they are Bad customers you need to make sure they have a fair deal, as they don't have a reason to hate you and give you bad press. However if they are a good customer and get a deal, they will have a reason to like you better. You make your public prices for the average bad customer when they prove themselves you give them a better deal.

Re:Differential Pricing?

[MentlFlos]

Ah, so you don't change the price of the car but you add undercoating and "free" oil changes for 1 year. :D

barbara streisand effect

[apodyopsis]

another fine example of the barbara streisand effect in the making.

see...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect

stupid. sometimes I wonder how these executives think, or even if.

Re:barbara streisand effect

[Lonewolf666]

And free publicity for GroundWork. With this Slashdot article I guess the number of people who are aware of that alternative to HP has multiplied ;-)

Re:Erm...

[Yaa 101]

Erm... this is called open market.

They're just enforcing an NDA

[Anonymous Coward]

HP found out that one of their competitors (GroundWork) has HP's confidential documents. They shouldn't have those - somebody has obviously broken an NDA. Do GroundWork have any other NDA'd documents that would allow them to unfairly compete against HP? HP probably don't know. So HP are investigating, and one way they are doing that is by asking GroundWork where they got the document from. (Oh and they also ask for the document to be returned and for GroundWork to stop using it; that doesn't stop GroundWork from quoting HP prices because they can just get the prices from the GSA site).

GroundWork is doing a very good job of spinning this so people report "HP don't want everyone to know they're expensive". And that's a nonsense story - anyone seriously considering buying HP is going to ask HP for a price, they don't need to find out from GroundWork! (And GroundWork can quote the prices from the GSA site anyway). But it pushes GroundWork's key marketing message - "we're cheaper than HP" - and gets them namechecks and sympathy on blogs - so congratulations to GroundWork for excellent marketing.

Re:They're just enforcing an NDA

[Headcase88]

"Anyone seriously considering buying HP is going to ask HP for a price, they don't need to find out from GroundWork"

... why should I waste my time getting prices from different competitors when I could get all the information from one source? Sounds like bullshit to me.

Imagine if you went to a grocery store, but none of the price tags were there. You had to ask someone at the cash register for the price of each product (and negotiate your way down). So a competing grocery store that doesn't force you into these negotiations lets you compare the list prices and... you know the rest. Worse yet, there are only 4 grocery store chains in the world, 3 chains have the no price tag practice, and the remaining one doesn't have the brand names and shiny colours that your children like. Talk about getting in the way of the free market.

The only difference here is that only corporations are buying the products, so it only affects the small % of the population that purchases\negotiates for them. Hence no public outrage. Also, instead of children, it's executives, but the shiny colours point stands.

Re:Same case for CAD/CAM/CAE software

[easyTree]

Q> How much is it?

A> How much have you got?

Re:Sad.

[Jeff DeMaagd]

This is why judgments on corporations or people should be made on what they do, not what they say. It's easy to say anything. It's harder to make actions lie.

That said, people that believe corporations aren't out to make the most money that they can really don't understand how corporations generally work. They're not out to improve the world unless that's where they make the most money. I think you can blame stockholders for that, and maybe more specifically, day traders on the part where corporations look for the quickest bang for the buck, those people are often the kind that are eager to make a quick buck, not build wealth over the long term.

Re:Sad.

[tehcyder]

My impression of HP is that it's a massive hypocritical money-grubbing sales team.

If you find a company's culture objectionable then leave, it's not like you've been drafted into the army or something.

Re:Sour grapes much?

[fmoliveira]

I never buy anything announced with an "ask us" price tag. Unless there isn't an alternative with a more clear pricing. I found that usually, when the price is hidden, it's a bad price.

Re:Sad.

[HiThere]

Considering that the path they're choosing to "make money" is offending past repeat customers, you *ought* to be offended.