In the article, the Channel Register comments that HP's StorageWorks business was a "forlorn story of mediocre performance" with overall revenue dropping 3 per cent and EVA dropping 5 per cent.

The article also comments: "The P4000 LeftHand iSCSI storage line is doing well, but the rest is not, and HP thinks external storage is going to be less popular in future as direct-attach gets the customer preference."

The overall question seems to be one of policy - are HP abandoning external storage in favour of direct attached or is it just in need of refocusing?