Tag: Integrity

HP locks in corporate customers

Posted on December 3, 2014 by - News

superdomeAhead of the breakup of the company, HP is doing its best to make sure that its big corporate customers do not flee.

The maker of expensive printer ink has announced a cunning plan to help retain important customers by allowing them to leave behind their Integrity.

HP will offer versions of two computer server lines under H-P’s Integrity moniker—Superdome and NonStop—that will be powered by Intel’s Xeon chips. HP’s Integrity machines now use Intel’s Itanium chips.

HP’s new Superdome model has sockets to plug in 16 Xeon chips and offers nine times the performance of a conventional H-P system with eight Xeon chips, the company said. H-P has developed accessory chips and software to speed up communications between chips and improve reliability.

Revenue from these “business-critical” servers, declined 29 percent in the quarter ended in October over a year earlier. However, Superdome and NonStop servers are still used by banks, telecommunications carriers and other companies particularly concerned with reliability.

Integrity only made $929 million in revenue in the fiscal year ended October 31, which was nothing compared to the $12.5 billion generated from more popular x86 servers.

HP needs to keep these customers sweet because they buy software, services and other hardware from H-P that hinges on the applications running on the Superdome and NonStop machines.

Under the plan HP will keep developing Itanium-based systems but will help its clients move Intel’s mainstream Xeon technology.

Intel, which introduced its last Itanium model in late 2012, has disclosed plans for a successor, which is code-named Kittson. The chipmaker hasn’t said when that product will arrive nor described models it may develop after that.

For Superdome, HP is encouraging customers to move to the Linux operating system or other software. HP is porting NonStop software to run on Xeon chips. The company is offering services to help customers migrate to the new technology in both cases.

 

Apple has integrity, design guru says

Posted on November 14, 2014 by - News

Apple's Jonathan IveThe man in charge of design at Apple Corp said the primary goal of Apple isn’t to make money but to show integrity.

Jonathan Ive, the Brit who has become Apple’s design guru, also hit out at companies that copied Apple designs, according to Dezeen magazine.

Speaking at London’s Design Museum, Ive said that Apple isn’t naive and if it makes good products, people would buy them.

He described companies copying Apple designs as thieves.  He said that it isn’t at all flattering to have designs the company has worked on for years suddenly be copied in six months.

He didn’t name names.

He also said that to do something new you have to reject reason and that can make you look odd.

In other companies, he claimed, designers cave in to the corporate agendum and to marketeers.

He said Apple’s much delayed iWatch is a giant leap forward – clocks took centuries to end up as wrist watches.

You can read the full report at Dezeen, here.

The Itanium lives on in HP kit

Posted on November 4, 2013 by - News, Products

HPWe don’t know how many Itanium microprocessors Intel still manufactures in its wafer manufactories.

The chip hasn’t been an Intel runaway success but today HP said it lives on its mission critical HP Nonstop technology for X86 servers.

According to HP, eight of the top 10 world banks use HP Nonstop and now the company is selling Integrity blade servers based on the Itanium 9500 series.

HP is, it said already developing tech to extend Nonstop to the X86 but it willtake several years before adoption, the company said.

Blade systems NB56000c-cg and NB56000c are already available, with prices varying. Resellers should contact their HP account manager for more information.