Storage company EMC has responded to HP's full frontal attack on it last week by claiming it was being opportunistic for the sake of profit. Last week, HP said EMC Symmetrix technology, which it re-sold for several years, was ageing and proprietary. (Story: EMC and HP: war declared) But Mark Fredrickson, head of global PR at EMC in the US, said: "HP has a credibility problem because they told their corporate users they had the ultimate storage solution on Tuesday and on Wednesday they'd changed their mind." He said: "This makes it very clear that HP's real strategy is to do with their own bottom line and the urgency they have to pull more profits out of a big market." Fredrickson said that the statements would not affect EMC's corporate customers because HP was merely a reseller. "We've had a big response from both corporate customers and resellers asking for continuity," he said. "Our reseller strategy is intact as we speak." He said that HP sales of EMC Symmetrix kit represented $700 million last year, and accounted for only 13 per cent in its first quarter. "Wall Street thinks we'll do $5.2 billion this year and so it's under $700 million [of sales] he said." He admitted that HP's agreement to sell Symmetrix kit was a large part of EMC business, but "EMC has had full customer agreement in every account. The machines are installed and serviced by EMC." He said: "Clearly HP's strategy is not driven by customer concern." So there is a war. ®