But Wait, There's More

• Hewlett-Packard last week announced two new entry servers that it is targeting at the small and midsized business market. The tc2120 tower server can be configured with a Celeron or Pentium 4 processor, and supports up to 4 GB of main memory. The base machine with the 1.8 GHz Celeron processor comes with 128 MB of main memory and a 40 GB Ultra ATA disk drive--all for $499. The base tc2120 configured with a 2.53 GHz Pentium 4 comes with 256 MB and the 40 GB disk for $729; with a 36 GB SCSI disk, the price goes up to $829. Operating systems are not included in this price. With a five-user license for Microsoft Windows 2000, the tc2120 costs $,1629. The ProLiant ML 310 tower server has a 2.8 GHz Pentium 4 processor and comes with 256 MB of base memory (expandable to 4 GB) and a 40 GB ATA drive for $1,048. Larger ATA drives and SCSI drives are available for this server, which has room for a maximum of 403 GB of disk storage. This machine also can be put into standard racks.

• Microsoft acquired the assets and technology for virtual machine partitioning for Windows-based servers from Connectix several months ago. Connectix had been expecting to deliver a beta version of its first server partitioning program (it has been selling partitioning software on desktop operating systems for years) on April 15, before the acquisition. Microsoft has missed that launch by a few weeks, and it may be calling the Virtual Server product a pre-beta release, but it did get Virtual Server out the door more or less on time. The Virtual Server program works only on 32-bit Intel-based servers, but odds are Microsoft will eventually deliver support for Itanium with the production version of Virtual Server for Windows. You can download the software at www.betaplace.com, using the guest ID "vspreview." Microsoft cautions that Virtual Server is missing features and is not yet ready for production.
  
  
• Microsoft and storage vendor EMC last week announced that they have broadened their relationship on a number of different fronts in the storage market. Under the agreement, EMC will support Microsoft's Windows Server 2003 storage APIs in its Symmetrix and other storage products, and the two companies will develop best practices and reference implementations of EMC and Microsoft storage management solutions, which, they claimed, would be based on open storage standards, to demonstrate the ability of their combined products to deliver large-scale storage for big Windows environments. The two companies will also deliver combined technical support for EMC products in Windows environments, and they have agreed to engage in joint marketing efforts to explain to the Windows world why an integrated Microsoft-EMC solution is better than an alternative. EMC also has agreed to use a cut-down version of the Windows operating system as the core technology in a network-attached storage array that EMC will deliver sometime in the future. This partnership is an expansion of a deal the two companies inked in February 2000 to get official Microsoft marketing muscle and support behind EMC's popular Symmetrix arrays.
  
  
• At the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) in New Orleans this week, Microsoft chairman and chief software architect Bill Gates said that the company is seeing growing support from the IT industry for its Dynamic Systems Initiative, to deliver dynamic, flexible, and autonomic IT infrastructure based on its Windows software stack. It is analogous to IBM's On Demand, Hewlett-Packard's Adaptive Enterprise Infrastructure, and Sun Microsystems' N1 initiatives. Dell and HP were early supporters of the Microsoft initiative, and Gates says that IBM, NEC, Fujitsu Siemens, and upstart Opteron server maker Newisys are working on the Automatic Deployment Services component of the initiative for their own products. Automatic Deployment Services is a server provisioning and administration tool that is slated for a future Windows release. In addition to that announcement, Microsoft and HP announced this week that they have designed a prototype dynamic data center based on HP servers, storage, and networking equipment and HP and Microsoft software.
  
  
• EDI software developer IPNet Solutions is offering incentives on software to encourage manufacturers and distributors to register their products in the UCCnet Global Registry, an open database of specifications for consumer products, created to reduce inefficiency due to the wide assortment of product data types. The Newport Beach, California, company recently announced it will be offering free licenses for its MapPack for UCCnet Starter Kit to companies that purchase a five-trading-partners license of BizManager BizConnect by June 30. The kit includes four UCCnet item synchronization processes, including item add, item linkage, item publication, and delete unlisted item, and is designed so that companies can automate UCCnet item synchronization without having to replace or upgrade their current EDI translator. BizManager BizConnect is a PC-based data-exchange solution for companies that need to communicate with trading partners using other IPNet EDI applications, including BizManager400. IPNet Solutions also offers its MapPack for UCCnet Supply Side Kit.
  
  
• Integrated Print Solutions, the company that earlier this year introduced the internet OnePrint Solution utility for connecting an iSeries to practically any printer over the Internet, is developing new Linux software for mainframe and iSeries printing. OnePrint G2, which is still in development, will emulate expensive IBM host printers and allow OS/400 shops to convert their AFP/IPDS or SCS print output to PCL for printing on cheaper network laser printers. The software will support impact and ink jet printers. Integrated Print Solutions is planning three versions of OnePrint G2 that will reside in Linux partitions on iSeries servers, mainframes, and PC servers, and plans to ship the software this September.
  
  

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