NEC Launches Two-Way Itanium Blade Server
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

NEC is a long-time partner and rival of Hewlett-Packard, and the two companies have both placed substantial bets on the Intel Itanium architecture. Despite all of the noise about Advanced Micro Devices' Opteron processor and the advent of 64-bit Xeons from Intel, NEC, like HP, remains committed to the Itanium processor, and not just at the high end of its server line. This week, NEC is rolling out its third generation of blade servers, and this one, called the IPF Blade, is based on Itanium. READ MORE >

Dell Begrudgingly Launches Four-Way Itanium Box
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

Server maker Dell this week announced a four-way server based on the "Madison" Itanium 2 processors in what appears to be a genuine attempt to capitalize on the benefits of the Itanium architecture now that 64-bit Windows and Linux operating systems seem to be maturing enough to be used in production. This is not Dell's first foray into the four-way Itanium space, but it does appear that Dell is going to try to sell this machine where it makes sense to. READ MORE >

Relational Database Biz on Linux Is Booming
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

The fiercely competitive database market has not gotten any easier to be in, but did grow a bit in 2003, according to Gartner. The company says the overall relational database market grew by 5.1 percent in 2003, to $7.1 billion, a big improvement over the 6 percent decline database makers suffered through in 2002, when they only sold $6.7 billion in new licenses. (These figures do not include services and support revenues or sales of flat file database management systems still sold by IBM, Computer Associates, and a few other companies.) READ MORE >

Sun Fires First Shot in Server Subscription Wars
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

The big IT companies are trying to sort out the future of computing and how we are going to pay for it. Last week, Jonathan Schwartz, the young, pony-tailed software exec from Sun Microsystems recently named as president and chief operating officer, outlined his vision for computing, which he boringly called "network services." Poor naming aside, the subscription model that Schwartz is betting on for Sun's future is one that every IT shop should be aware of, because it may make technology more fluid than what we are used to. READ MORE >

  But Wait, There's More

Open Source Community Weaves Geronimo Java App Server Under Apache Project . . . Linux Patch to Support NX Security Is Released . . . Sun Not Planning Linux-Based Netra-Ruggedized Servers . . . MandrakeSoft Supports Opteron with Official 10 Release. . . Lawrence Livermore Lab Turns on World's Biggest Linux Cluster . . . IDC Expects Software Subscriptions to Grow Steadily . . . READ MORE >

Reader Feedback and Insights

We value your feedback and insights. Feel free to send a letter to the editor. Letters may be printed, unless otherwise specified, and edited for clarity or length. READ MORE >

Acucorp
Guild Companies
Open Systems
ShaoLin Microsystems
SuSE Linux