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Comment by alberth | Hacker News Reader

It’s interesting how hardware manufacturers have offered the ability to lease equipment for literally decades.

Now, they start calling it a “subscription” and Wallstreet thinks it’s innovation.

I work in infrastructure... Nothing has changed here. This is leasing. Dell also has a division named Dell Financial Services that will lease or loan you the hardware.

I don't totally understand what they mean, the press-release-style article isn't very specific. But:

> Customers will now be able to use Dell’s hardware based on their consumption, as a service… For the consumption programs, customers pay for the amount of storage or computing power they use.

That part sounds different than an ordinary lease, yes? I'm not totally sure I understand what it is though... the hardware on-premise at the customer for their exclusive use? But somehow it's usage is metered?

Doesn't a lease mean that you take custody of the goods and return them at the end? IIUC this is much more like a service akin to cloud offerings. Who pays the power bill for the server(s) subscribed to? Is the subscription one-for-one with serial numbers? Or if you deactivate the server and activate it again later could you get a different one?

Maybe they'll do small volumes with subscriptions though? Now a smaller business may be able to rent/lease <$5k worth of hardware where in the past discounts were given for big data center orders?

Yep. But I don't think the Street is blind to this. They want it for their own good. Not that they think it's innovative. But it protects their investment as a recurring model vs having to deal with lumpy quarters and churn. It's easier to keep leasing, I mean subscribe to, and get locked in vs just switch vendors.

We're in the era of disruptionish. Give something a new, i-friendly, name and off you go.

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