hewlett-packard

Sun Microsystems Chief Executive Scott McNealy suggested the time is ripe for a partnership between his company and Silicon Valley rival Hewlett-Packard. But HP might not like the terms of the deal.

"They're not doing processors, they're not doing operating systems, they don't have middleware. Ultimately they're just reselling Wintel and other systems," McNealy said Wednesday at Sun's annual analyst conference, held this year in San Francisco. "As the Itanium thing goes away--it just has to--they become much more complementary. We can leverage their services, and they can leverage our microprocessor and … Read more

AIX, IBM's version of Unix, celebrated its 20th birthday this month.

The operating system was first introduced in January 1986, a time when there were numerous variations of the operating system initially developed by AT&T but widely licensed to others. In the two decades since, Unix has penetrated mainstream businesses, and the major Unix options have consolidated to AIX, Sun Microssytems' Solaris and Hewlett-Packard's HP-UX.

IBM's Unix version is under fire, however, because of the SCO Group's lawsuit against Big Blue. SCO, which inherited the AT&T Unix contract with IBM, argues IBM … Read more

Microsoft is offering cash incentives called coupons to computer makers that sell personal computers with HD-DVD drives, a next-generation DVD format the software behemoth is supporting over rival Blu-ray disk, Electronic Engineering Times reported Monday.

Microsoft declined to comment in the EE Times report, which cited as evidence of Microsoft's success Hewlett-Packard's decision to back HD-DVD as well where it previously exclusively supported Blu-ray. An HP executive also said Microsoft's forthcoming Vista version of Windows will include HD-DVD support for free, whereas PC makers must pay about $30 per drive in Blu-ray royalties.

In September, Microsoft and Intel raised the profile of the battle between HD-DVD and Blu-ray … Read more

Hewlett-Packard plans to unveil new utility computing services Tuesday and tout its research efforts in the area.

Utility computing means a different things to different people, but generally involves paying for computer processing power as it's consumed. Sometimes that means switching on new capacity in a server when it's needed, in this case, it likely involves tapping into servers run by HP.

Two HP executives are scheduled to speak: Brian Fowler will discuss HP's new Flexible Computing Services, and Karen Walker talk about a collaboration HP Services and HP Labs involving … Read more

Intel has caught up to rival Advanced Micro Devices with its dual-core chips for dual-processor and four-processor servers. But with the chips, Intel still lags AMD in one important domain: power consumption.

Intel recommends server maker design power and cooling around a chip's "thermal design power." TDP measures the power needed to run conventional software at full tilt and is generally about 90 percent of the maximum power that the chip could conceivably require.

Intel argues that its dual-core chips, code-named Paxville and released in October, can be dropped into the same server designs as their single-core … Read more

Disclaimer: I imprinted on the vi editor on a Unix system in 1990 and never could bring myself to figure out Emacs.

But I am not alone in my preferences. The text editor ships in one form or another with every Unix, Linux or BSD system out there, and sysadmins can count on it even when X servers give up the ghost, network connections are too pokey or fancier editors aren't installed. So loyalists will be delighted to know that one widely used incarnation--Vim, short for vi improved--has been upgraded to version 6.4. Vim, an open-source program, ships … Read more

Sun Microsystems debuted its UltraSparc IV+ servers last week, but IBM will counter that launch by announcing Unix servers with the new Power5+ processor next week, sources familiar with the plans said.

Big Blue will tout the latest generation of its Unix servers on Oct. 4, refreshing its pSeries line with the new processor and a new product family name. The Power5+ is expected to arrive at a clock speed of 1.9GHz, the same as the top speed of its predecessor, the Power5.

Following in the nomenclature footsteps of the new z9 mainframe, the new Power-based machines will be … Read more

Who knew that a top executive of Hewlett-Packard's high-end server group is a fan of the distorted guitars and psychedelic grunge rock of Seattle band Soundgarden? Or that he could transform that liking into a jab at rival Sun Microsystems?

Rich Marcello revealed this musical proclivity on his blog Wednesday, saying he would always "turn the radio way up" when Soundgarden's "Black Hole Sun" played. Most recently, he heard it while he was driving to work, leading him to free-associate to astrophysicist Stephen Hawking's work on black holes.

Marcello's thoughts then carried … Read more

Sun Microsystems Chief Executive Scott McNealy took potshots at many of his peers in the computing industry during a keynote address Tuesday--even at Larry Ellison, leader of the company hosting the Oracle OpenWorld conference at which McNealy spoke before an audience of 12,000.

Shortly after introducing servers based on Sun's new UltraSparc IV+ processor, McNealy showed a slide picturing him in jeans and Ellison in characteristically sharp attire. "That suit! You can buy 14 of our new servers for that suit," McNealy quipped.

He also listed the supposed song playlist on Ellison's iPod: "… Read more