HP Turns in a Solid Fiscal 2007 Second Quarter
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

With the exception of weaknesses in high-end storage and tape and a few other minor areas, Hewlett-Packard turned in a rock solid--and maybe even a somewhat surprisingly strong--fiscal 2007 second quarter, with sales up 13 percent to $25.5 billion in the quarter ended April 30. Earnings from operations rose 22 percent to $2.2 billion, but because HP had to pay taxes this time around and actually had a tax benefit in the year-ago quarter, the company posted net earnings of $1.78 billion, down 7 percent. READ MORE >

IBM's AIX Roadmap Through 2015
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

With the Power6 server announcements looming large, and presumably coming in the AIX-based System p servers first, followed by the System i boxes at some later date, the natural thing for IBM to talk about along with Power6 hardware advancements is how it plans to advance the AIX operating system. Customers don't just want roadmaps and assurances about the hardware. They want them about the operating systems that run on it, too. READ MORE >

Sun's Board Authorizes $3 Billion in Share Buybacks
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

The board of directors of Sun Microsystems did something this week that many Wall Street analysts have been pressing the company to do since it appeared that Sun was back on track to a recovery: authorize buybacks of company shares from the market. And, because Wall Street is a capricious task master, investors pretty much yawned on the news that the Sun board had authorized the firm to spend up to $3 billion in hard-earned cash on buybacks. READ MORE >

The X Factor: Small Is Beautiful
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

For the past five decades of the computer industry, three forces have been at work that have determined the trajectory of all hardware and software technologies. The first, and perhaps the most important, is the desire by companies and individuals to want to automate processes and store data. Without this desire, Moore's Law--the ability to put more transistors on a chip to boost processing or memory capacity--would be meaningless. Data centers would be the size of a pack of cigarettes, and they would only cost $100. READ MORE >