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Pure Storage is giving away FREE flash arrays – but there's a catch
Triumphal icing or desperate measure to boost the quarter?
Pure Storage is offering a free flash array to new customers who take out a support contract.

Channel e-mail from Pure
According to a channel e-mail The Register has seen (above), this special offer ends on October 30th.
We asked Pure whether this was true and International PR manager Julie André said: "We are precluded from sharing details on our sales or inventory mix until our next earnings call. Our Evergreen Storage architecture offers customers the opportunity to upgrade to the latest innovations from Pure Storage, such as the new FlashArray//m, as their needs expand and they transition to an all flash future regardless of product generation."
Not "no", in other words.
The Evergreen support contract idea includes:
- Flat maintenance pricing
- Controller upgrade every three years included in maintenance pricing
- Ongoing warranty for all components, including flash media
- Controller, flash and software upgrades available continuously
- All software upgrades included
- Upgrade controllers as needed, receive trade-in credit when purchasing additional capacity
Pure is coming up to the end of its fiscal 2016 third quarter, which ends on Saturday October 31, and we don't know whether this special offer is to put icing on a triumphal quarter's cake or a desperate throw to boost business. ®