OEM vs TPM – Is Third-Party Maintenance Better than OEM Support?

IT leaders across the globe face enormous challenges trying to lower costs related to their IT infrastructure. Gartner recently recorded that IT spending was to grow 9.8% in 2025, leaving Infrastructure and Operations teams facing great pressure to deliver both cost savings initiatives, in the face of ever-increasing costs.

Third-party maintenance (TPM) can pose as a solution to save money when it comes to hardware maintenance compared to the original equipment manufacturer (OEM). This article investigates OEM vs TPM support, including the opportunity to save on hardware and support costs for servers, storage and network equipment via TPM. As well as discussing the risks associated with leaving maintenance to someone other than the OEM.

Let’s compare original equipment manufacturers (OEM) support and third-party maintenance (TPM).

What is OEM Maintenance?

When companies buy hardware products like servers, storage, and network from brands such as Cisco, HPE, and Dell, the OEM typically provides an initial period of support and maintenance during a 1-3 year period after purchase during its warranty coverage.

After the warranty expires, the OEMs offer post-warranty support options at an additional cost. Oftentimes, the equipment will be phased out with varying degrees of obsolescence including end of life and end of service life classifications intended to ensure upgrades to their newer equipment.

4 Benefits of OEM Support

TPM support is growing considerably and many users may feel stuck with OEM support. Nonetheless, OEM maintenance can pose some advantages, which are listed below:

1. Perceived expertise – Seeing as OEMs developed and manufactured the product, they are often thought to have in-depth knowledge of the design, engineering, and functionality of their products, ensuring accurate diagnostics and high-quality repairs or services.
2. Software Update Releases – OEMs provide regular patches and feature improvements that keep systems secure, efficient, and compatible with new technologies. TPMs will not be able to release patches, though they can often apply them.
3. Genuine parts & tools – OEMs supply authentic replacement parts and specialized tools designed for their products. It must be noted, however, that reputable TPMs will also always use genuine components, so this is less of an advantage for OEMs nowadays.
4. Reliability & trust – OEMs back their service with the credibility of their brand and reputation. Customers could be more confident knowing that their data center hardware devices are protected by the original manufacturer.

5 Disadvantages of OEM Support

Though some customers of OEM products will automatically use support from the OEM, this offering should be considered more thoroughly. This is because OEM maintenance contracts can come with some disadvantages, such as:

1. Higher costs – OEM service contracts and extended warranties are usually more expensive than third-party alternatives. Over time, these costs can add up significantly, leading to higher operating expenditure (OpEx) costs for data center maintenance.
2. Limited flexibility – OEMs may only offer fixed support packages with little room for customization. Not to mention OEMs can only provide support for the equipment they sell and not multi-vendor maintenance. Both of these points can make it harder to align with an organization’s specific operational or budgetary needs.
3. Product obsolescence pressure – OEMs often phase out older models and discontinue support to drive customers toward new purchases. This can shorten the usable life of equipment and increase capital expenditure (CapEx).
4. Geographic/service limitations – In some regions, OEM service centers may be limited, leading to slower response times. This is especially challenging for global operations with distributed sites.
5. Slower adoption of innovative solutions – Independent providers may adopt newer tools or more flexible service models faster than OEMs. This can put OEM-supported customers at a disadvantage in terms of efficiency or customization.

What is Third-Party Maintenance?

Third-Party Maintenance is hardware support provided by someone other than the original equipment manufacturer and is referred to as an independent service provider or TPM provider.

With third-party maintenance, there is often more flexibility as maintenance agreements are customized to the organization’s IT infrastructure environment. Additionally, TPM providers also arrange add-on services, such as software technical support, where software support is offered on top of hardware maintenance.

A TPM service can also be initiated in multiple instances, from day 1 (out of the box) support, post-warranty support, end of life (EOL) support and end of service life (EOSL) maintenance, as evidenced in the graphic below.

7 Benefits of Third-Party Hardware Maintenance

Why choose third-party maintenance over OEM support? We have highlighted 7 reasons why TPM is a better maintenance solution for your IT infrastructure hardware. All proficient, global third-party maintenance providers should be able to provide the following compared to original equipment manufacturers:

1. Lower Cost – Third-party IT maintenance providers can reduce maintenance costs dramatically for organizations by up to 30-40% while reducing overall operating expenses.

   Even if hardware is under a current support contract with the OEM, layering on an additional 7x24x4 service level agreement (SLA) contract with a TPM provider can lead to greater Uptime and a 40% saving compared to the OEMs fastest level of support.

2. Extend the Life of IT Assets – While OEMs encourage technology refreshes, TPMs put power back in the hands of the IT team. Third-party maintainers extend the life of existing hardware well beyond their EOSL date. Not only does this mean customers face lower CapEx costs as hardware lasts longer, but the IT team can refresh their data center equipment precisely when they want to.

3. Improved Sustainability – With IT asset lifetimes being extended, this reduces the need for new hardware and therefore a lower release in emissions from producing said hardware.

   This also encourages less disposal of IT hardware, further improving the sustainability score of data centers.

4. Better Support Response Times – TPM’s often have flexible SLAs because their priority is to provide an unmatched level of support that maximises Uptime, with no intention to sell new hardware. Root cause of hardware issues are identified quickly through engineers with 15+ years of OEM experience, ensuring a smooth service.

5. Greater Engineer Expertise – Professional and reputable TPM providers will utlize engineers with many years of experience, as mentioned above, often with 15+ years across various OEM products.

   Imagine a data center with devices from many different OEMs, a TPM engineer would likely have greater experience across various OEMs compared to an engineer from one OEM. This would lead to faster repairs to IT infrastructure hardware.

6. Multi-Vendor Support – Third-party maintenance providers act as a single point of contact for an entire IT infrastructure, even when the hardware comes from a wide range of manufacturers. This provides a more straightforward system for end-users.

   This benefit is extended further with some TPMs, such as Park Place Technologies, offering a service where they can contact the OEM to remediate a hardware fault, even if the device is under an OEM support contract (not TPM). This again showcases the flexibility of TPM support.

7. Greater Flexibility – All the points above lean into the factor that third-party maintenance providers offer greater flexibility than OEMs.

   With TPMs, businesses often gain an operational advantage with flexible contracts and service agreements, a global 24/7 support center with immediate incident escalation, and direct access to badged field service and advance engineering teams.

OEM vs TPM Comparison

To reach a conclusion as to whether TPM or OEM support is better suited to your environment, five core comparisons have been made below. In each instance, either TPM or OEM support has been suggested.

1. Maintenance Costs

TPM will reduce your maintenance costs but the savings will vary based on your server, storage, or network equipment.

Advantage TPM.

For a specific example of where TPM support is more cost-effective, the video below showcases Cisco support from the OEM vs the TPM:

2. Hardware Expertise

Though OEMs have deep engineering expertise on their products, Expert TPM providers also have extensive engineering training, with experience across multiple OEM products.

That being said, for newly released and brand-new families of hardware, its Advantage OEM.

3. Hardware Lifecycle Extension

Extending the lifecycle of existing assets without impact to operations is an important consideration for a TPM vs OEM service.

If possible, organizations would rather postpone technology refreshes and avoid capital expenditures. With that in mind, it would be prudent to seek hardware support that can extend well beyond the OEM’s EOSL date and use a service that provides replacement parts without increased support costs.

In this case it’s Advantage TPM.

4. Coverage and/or Response Times

TPM allows for the ability to mix and match service levels within a single location, whereas the OEMs have standard service offers. Global coverage can be handled by TPMs, while OEM support will only leverage their own engineers during an issue, rather than engaging in break-fix support promptly. This allows TPM to reduce the time from call to resolution.

Advantage TPM.

5. Flexibility

Do you have the ability to mix and match service levels? Do you want to manage many OEM contracts or just a single contract? Most OEMs each have a standard and you’ll have to manage to each.

Advantage TPM.

Table to Compare OEM vs TPM

We understand there’s a lot to take in when assessing a TPM vs OEM service. For that reason we have created the below table to compare the differences between the two offerings clearly.

Should you Use the Original Equipment Manufacturer or Third-Party Support?​

The answer could be a hybrid model; however, at a time when organizations need to reduce maintenance costs – third-party maintenance from Park Place is a great way to get substantial savings.

If a company wishes to keep their product and support offering with one provider, then OEM support is preferable. However, if you have varying OEM support programs and see the need to simplify your support program and extend the lifecycle of your server, storage, or network infrastructure without impact to performance, then TPM is clearly the better option.

Have a conversation with Park Place Technologies today, to learn about our TPM offering.