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Technology Stocks : Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Night Writer who wrote (624)	5/24/2002 4:05:22 PM
From: Night Writer	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4345

IBM Unix Server Flies Past HP in Speed Test May 24, 2002 (NewsFactor.com via COMTEX) -- An IBM (NYSE: IBM) server has recaptured the lead over a Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) machine in the latest speed test in what has become the most lucrative server category: high-end Unix-based machines. IBM's P690 Regatta set a new record in the latest test of 403,000 transactions per minute, bypassing the previous record of 389,000 set by Hewlett-Packard's Superdome, IBM officials said Thursday. Observers generally acknowledge that current server speed tests do not accurately measure the overall performance of servers. However, they remain important selling points for customers in the hotly contested Unix server market, which accounted for 40 percent of the US$4.3 billion in total first-quarter server sales in the United States, according to research firm Gartner (NYSE: IT). Unix servers are usually used to store the huge corporate databases that underlie such data-intensive functions as conducting credit card transactions. 'Computing Environment' The test itself, called the TPC-C, is controversial. Sun Microsystems (Nasdaq: SUNW) , for example, which rules the Unix server market with its Sun Fire 15K Starcat, refused to be a part of the latest test, although it has competed in the past. The TPC-C "simulates a complete computing environment, where a population of users executes transactions against a database," according to the TPC-C Web site . Tasks include entering and delivering orders, recording payments, checking the status of orders and monitoring the level of warehouse stock. Sabotage and Lawsuits The Unix server speed wars between IBM and HP are fierce. Last November, HP filed a lawsuit against one of its own employees for sabotage involving Superdome tests. The machine had performed poorly in January testing, leading to analyst criticism and resulting in poor sales. HP said it spent more than $1 million trying to identify the problems and eventually found evidence of employee sabotage. "The inability to report these results damaged HP's reputation and cost it substantial damages in lost sales to customers, who would have purchased HP Superdome servers had HP been able to report the results," the lawsuit said in part. IBM: "Important Milestone" IBM's Regatta is a 32-processor server, compared with the HP Superdome's 64 processors . The Regatta is powered by IBM's own Power 4 microprocessor, a "server-on-a-chip" that contains two 1 GHz-plus processors, a high-bandwidth system switch and a large memory cache. In addition to its speed, IBM also cited the Regatta's economics, saying the machine has a "price-performance" score of $19.57 per transaction compared with $21.24 per transaction for the HP machine. "I would say it's a very important milestone in the following sense: This particular benchmark, the TPC-C, would be what I would describe as the de facto standard for defining overall systems performance in the commercial marketplace," IBM director of eServer benchmarking David Gelardi told NewsFactor. "So having as good a result as we have in terms of both performance per CPU and price performance is very significant," Gelardi said. "It reinforces the message we've been giving to customers since the advent of Power 4, that you can get more done with less." Sun Sells Best Test results were measured using a standard Oracle database and version 5.2 of IBM's AIX operating system, which will not go on sale until the fourth quarter. The test allows the use of products slated to go on the market within six months of testing. Overall, however, Sun is the Goliath in the Unix server segment, with 54 percent of the market. IBM is currently in third place, with 17.2 percent. By Tim McDonald URL: ibm.com hp.com sun.com tpc.org oracle.com Copyright (C) 2002, NewsFactor Network. All rights reserved

To: Night Writer who wrote (624)	5/24/2002 4:05:40 PM
From: MeDroogies	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4345

If nothing happens over the weekend, terror-wise, I'd expect a rally Tuesday. People are just concerned right now whether there is going to be something "unexpected" occurring.