Hewlett-Packard Co. is taking a lead from the likes of Facebook and Microsoft with a new line of low-cost Cloudline servers that embrace the concept of open hardware designs.

HP’s cheap and cheerful “no-frills” servers are a radical departure from the proprietary tech in its high-end Proliant servers. They’re based on the specifications established by the Open Compute Project, founded by Facebook in 2012, and the Open Networking Foundation, formed in 2011, and are the result of a collaboration between HP and China’s manufacturing giant Foxconn Technology Group that began last year.

HP’s Cloudline servers are aimed at the growing number of Internet companies which, like Facebook and Google, are looking to maxmize the efficiency of their data centers while keeping costs to a minimum.

“This is a noticeably different product line from what we’ve announced and what we’ve been shipping for 20+ years in the ProLiant line,” said John Gromala, HP’s senior director of hyperscale products management, on Tuesday.

HP’s Cloudline family comes in five product lines at launch, with the higher-end CL7300 and CL7100 systems designed to tackle compute applications that need masses of memory and storage. Slightly cheaper are the CL2200 and CL2100 systems, which are built to handle multipurpose workloads and storage-intensive Big Data applications, the company said. Finally, there’s the CL1100 server system, which is described as a two socket server with the lowest feature set, designed for companies who want to keep costs to an absolute minimum.

HP says its new white box servers will be available from March 30, though it hasn’t revealed exact pricing details yet. The company says its servers will only be available in volume, with pricing dependent on the configurations and quantities required.

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