paul, New HP mainframe-class servers. Doesn't say what processors, and I first assumed their own RISC-based chips. But then, article mentions supporting NT & Linux. Itanium or XEON chips, then??
Joey
siliconinvestor.com
HP Unveils New Server for Dot-Coms
By Nicole Volpe Sep 12 3:25pm ET
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Hewlett-Packard Co. (HWP.N) on Tuesday unveiled a new mainframe-class UNIX server -- a refrigerator-sized computer designed to support dot-coms, Web service providers and other data-intensive businesses.
HP unveiled the HP-9000 Superdome system on Wall Street accompanied by smoke machines and techno music, with one middle-aged executive alternatively calling it ``cool,'' ``bad,'' ''neato'' and even ``spank'' -- a word he said he read in the New York Times that means cool.
The Palo Alto-based computer maker said the new server is cool because it minimizes system downtime through increased component backups, a wider range of easily changeable components and built-in error-correction capabilities.
``An always-on infrastructure is a requirement of the Internet age,'' said HP Chief Executive Carly Fiorina, citing a Lloyds of London estimate that $20 billion was lost to computer outages and hackers in 1999. ``Downtime costs money.''
HP said it will also offer a new ``utility-based'' pricing system, which allows a business to pay for as much computing power as it uses -- similar to the way it would pay an electricity or water bill.
``Businesses pay for only the server capacity they need -- no more, no less,'' said Fiorina.
The utility-like pricing is part of an overall strategy to attract customers whose needs for capacity are constantly changing. Some 95 percent of the thousands of customers who use HP's capacity-on-demand program -- which allows companies to quickly expand computing power as their needs grow -- are interested in the utility-based pricing, executives said.
The new server is designed to support its own UNIX operating systems, Microsoft Corp.'s (MSFT.O) Windows NT and the Linux alternative operating system simultaneously.
Duane Zitzner, president of HP's computing systems group, said Superdome will boost the computer maker's earnings and profit margins beginning in the first fiscal quarter ending in January.
``There is a huge amount of technology in this product,'' he said in an interview.
Superdome can be configured with up to 64 processors and 256 gigabytes of memory, said Zitzner.
``We've got plans to go beyond the 64-way,'' he said.
He said the ability to partition the computer, using blocks of computing power for various uses, would help distinguish the HP server from computers sold by server-market leader Sun Microsystems Inc. (SUNW.O) and International Business Machines Corp. (IBM.N), the world's largest computer maker.
The server, priced starting at about $400,000, begins shipping in volume in December, executives said.
``We were weak in the high-end,'' said Zitzner. ``We'll get revenue and margin off of these when it begins to ship in volume in December.''
He added that the server is a higher-margin product than HP's less-expensive servers.
Hewlett-Packard shares were down 1-3/8 at 112-3/16 on the New York Stock Exchange, where they have been under pressure since HP's talks to acquire the consulting arm of PricewaterhouseCoopers came to light.
In comments hinting at Fiorina's thoughts about the negotiations with PricewaterhouseCoopers, she talked about the increasingly tight links between technology and overall business strategies, in which traditional businesses become increasingly technology oriented as they move their operations online.
Some observers have wondered why HP would want to own PricewaterhouseCooper's entire consulting arm, which provides strategic services to traditional businesses as well as technology consulting.
``Today...technology is transforming every part of businesses and the markets they compete in,'' said Fiorina. ``We are entering a fundamentally different era of the Internet.'' |
