Last week’s offer from Buy.com lasted only a few hours. But now HP is actually selling its EX470 entry-level Windows Home Server box for $399, which is $150 below what it cost just last week. As Alex Kuretz notes at MediaSmartServer.net:
Deals like this tend to appear to either be holiday sales, or perhaps stock clearance in preparation for Encore?
Encore is the codename for HP’s next-generation Windows Home Server product. I don’t have any additional information I can share about Encore, but I can say this current deal is a good one. Indeed, it looks like normal inventory clearance in preparation for a hardware refresh.
This point in any product’s life cycle is always an interesting one. If you’re the sort who experiences buyer’s remorse when you see a new version of a product you own, then you might want to skip this deal. But if you’re willing to live with the existing feature set and hardware design, this price is excellent.
(Thanks for the tip, Brian!)
Ed Bott (@ wordpress.com) 
“Out of stock
Please check back soon”
A splendid example of the maximizers v. satisficers conundrum!
Thanks for the heads up!
That web site seems to change from In Stock and Out of Stock frequently. Best bet is to keep checking on the status.
Also, the MS Windows Home Server web site reports that there is another coupon code (SV2132) that you can use to bring the price down to $369.99! See http://mswhs.com/2008/11/18/hp-mediasmart-server-ex470-for-31499/ for the details.
The next model (“Encore”) better be pretty amazing to top this deal!
And then we have the new Tranquil “Squash” Home Media Server with a Dual Core Atom processor and 5 drive bays. See http://www.tranquilpc-shop.co.uk/acatalog/SQA-5H.html
More choices – a good thing in my book!
Thanks for posting this, Ed. This is just about the right price point for me, and I picked one of these up. The only thing I’d look for in the next version (besides more RAM), is reduced operating power consumption.
$299 at OfficeMax now.
Mike, I just tried to buy one and got rejected. When I put it in the cart, I tried to check out and was told, “Item disconintued.” This is par for the course at OfficeMax, where I have never, ever had a satisfying shopping experience.
Huh. I got as far in the checkout as asking for a credit card number, and I don’t want to go past that, but I’d hope it’d’ve given me an error message before now if it were going to.
As I understand it, their web inventory is regional, so perhaps it works for some delivery zip codes but not others?
Maybe, but twice in the past year I’ve tried to order a sale item from OfficeMax and had the process fail spectacularly both times. They’re without doubt the most clueless large company I’ve ever encountered when it comes to e-commerce.
Ah, when I entered my Mom’s Zip code in California it was successfully added to the shopping cart. However, that doesn’t mean anything, because I’ve had that happen in the past with OfficeMax, only to find 10-14 days later that the item was not in stock and my order was canceled.
Also, they add $25 for shipping…
Ed, the $24.75 they add is for California Sales Tax. The shipping is indeed free.
As for the Office Max.Com eCommerce experience, you are right there. I had to enter the order twice. The first time the web site lost the contents of my shopping cart as I was filling out the payment info! Hmm….