Why Blade Servers Still Don't Cut It, and How They Might
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

Sometimes, a good idea just doesn't take off. OK, this is information technology, not philosophy, so let me rephrase that more accurately. Sometimes, ideas and habits that were once laudable have an immense inertia that prevents a new and perhaps better idea from building momentum in the market; sometimes, a standard however begrudgingly adopted by IT vendors can overcome that inertia. Such is the case with the wonderful idea of blade servers. READ MORE >

Intel Keeps Both Arms Swinging with Xeons, Jabs with Itanium
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

Since waking up after being asleep for enough years to let Advanced Micro Devices have the driver's seat in the X64 chip market, in terms of design elegance, the top brass at Intel have been espousing their so-called 'tick-tock' rhythm of process and microarchitecture developments for Xeon and Itanium server processors. Maybe 'left jab-right hook' would be a more accurate description, since Intel is in position to keep pounding on a substantially weakened AMD. READ MORE >

Server Buyers Shop Like It's 1999 in the Second Quarter
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

If the economies of the Western countries are heading into recession, the purchase orders for servers at companies sure don't seem to be a reflection of this yet. And the Asia/Pacific, Eastern European, and South American markets still seem to be booming, despite more than a year of jittery economies where their indigenous companies have their own customers. And so, the second quarter looked pretty good in terms of server sales, according to research from box counter Gartner, with server sales up 5.7 percent to $13.8 billion and shipments up 12.2 percent to 2.34 million units. READ MORE >

As I See It: God Bless Technology
by Victor Rozek

Technology is a canvas painted in broad strokes. It tends to be discussed as an abstraction, serving as a one-word synopsis for the diverse exertions of scientists and engineers. Technology is a verb without a definitive object. It has become an end in itself, many steps removed from the lives of end users. READ MORE >