Sun Launches New Storage System – Sun 7310

Santa Clara, California-headquartered Sun Microsystems Inc has announced the launch of a new storage system.

Christened “Storage 7310″, the new system is priced starting from USD 40,165. Measuring about 1.8 inches (H) by about 17 inches (W) by about 28 inches (D), the device weighs approx 18.5 kilograms.

7310 has two quad-core AMD Opteron processors, with single controller or dual controller (optional), and a main memory of 64 Gb per controller. The system has a Read Flash Accelerator or up to 600 Gb per controller. Four GbE ports interface the system with the rest of the computing equipment. There are three internal Low Profile PCIe slots. For network connectivity, the system provides dual GigE UTP and MMF, Quad gigabit Ethernet UTP and dual 10 GigE Fiber XFP.

It is the storage capacity that is its most important feature; for the system offers 96 TB space, with 1TB 7,200 rpm SATA disks. The file system is Sun’s own ZFS, Ver 2009.Q2. Data compression at four levels is made available to the system administrator. Data reliability and integrity has been sought to be ensured through RAID 5 and 6. 7310 can be remotely managed through SNMP v2/v3. 

Read about the latest storage system from Sun, here.

Intel’s Business Practices Questioned

Santa Clara, California-headquartered Intel Corporation is under fire for allegedly unethical and unfair business practices from quite a few quarters.

Witness for example the ruling given by European Commission a few days ago. The EC has found that Intel has been giving discounts and rebates to computer manufacturers in a deal that incentivizes the latter to buy Intel and Intel-only products, to the exclusion of the competition. The company specifically made payments to Media Saturn a major player in the retail IT market in Europe, in return for the latter’s commitment that it will buy and sell Intel-based PCs only. Finally, the EC found that Intel has given payments to European computer manufacturers that had nothing to do with the latter’s purchases from Intel. These payments were only to buy their loyalty to Intel.

Intel Corporation has also been criticized by the Korean Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) for the company’s alleged practice of interfering in AMD’s launches of its products in the Korean market. Intel is said to have coerced and also paid customers in order to get them to use only Intel chips and products. KFTC has fined Intel 26 billion wons (USD 25.4 million).

Other regulatory bodies such as Japan Fair Trade Commission and the US Federal Trade Commission too have given negative rulings against Intel.

Read more about the allegedly murky, unfair and unethical business practices of an IT major, here.

Color E-ink years away

If your looking for a color screened E-book reader don’t hold your breath. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is telling everyone that we won’t be seeing color e-books as the norm for quite some time, he even went as far as to say these devices are “multiple years” away. He also said “I’ve seen the color displays in the laboratory, and I can assure you they’re not ready for prime time.”

In all honesty I wasn’t expecting a color version of these e-book readers for a while. However I am quite interested in the technology my self. Others believe that we will see other “alternatives instead of using e-ink they would use a cheaper alternative, for example they would use an enhanced LCD. I think this is probably likely but that doesn’t solve any problems. E-Ink was originally designed to allow you to read for long periods without eye strain or fatigue. Using LCD’s in these devices simply defeats the purpose. Currently there is only one e-book reader that does have a color screen, The Fijustu FLEPia which is only available in japan and costs $1000.

While we may not stick with E-ink forever going back to using LCD technology doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me and I really think that it would be defeating the purpose of the entire concept. The only reason I see us moving away from the E-Ink technology is that it does not support animations or video due to it not refreshing unless you tell it to, and when it does it’s very slow. The same problem plagues any new technology that is designed for something specific, people always want more than it’s originally designed to do.

BSQUARE Reports Lower Revenue In Q1 2009 Results

Bellevue, Washington-headquartered BSquare Corporation has reported a lower revenue in its first quarter 2009 results, in line with the general trend in the IT and software industry.

The company has clocked a total revenue for this quarter of USD 16.7 million, which is less than the revenue it enjoyed for the same quarter of last year by 2%. The company attributes this decline to slow third-party software sales.

There has been a net loss for the quarter of USD 90,000 for this quarter. The loss is justified by the expenditure incurred by the company in acquiring TestQuest for USD 476,000. The overall impact of this performance has been felt on the EBITDAS (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, amortization and stock compensation expense), which touched USD 227,000. The EBITDAS for Q1 2008 was USD 1.4 million.

The company is upbeat about its performance projections for the coming quarters, as it expects its investment in TestQuest Collaboration Server to payoff handsomely, according to the company press release. The company has also put into the market a Windows Mobile 6.5 Board Support Package for Texas Instruments’ OMAP3 family of processors, and has been selected by Microsoft as an Auto Training Partner.

Read more about the latest financial performance of an IT company, here.

T-Systems Acquires Metrolico

Frankfurt, Germany-based T-Systems, a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom AG, has announced the acquisition of Madrid, Spain-based Metrolico S.A.

Metrolico is a subsidiary of Lico Corporation. The company is engaged in the business of IT infrastructure management, maintenance and technical support in the Iberian peninsula, and predominantly in Spain. Within this domain, Metrolico is said to have a strong hold in the Spanish financial sector, which has traditionally a high demand for ICT services. The company has 1,150 employees on its roll, and had reported a revenue of EUR 54 million in the fiscal year 2008.

Metrolico’s parent company, Lico Corporation is a holding company owned by a group of 40 savings banks, the CECA financial institute, and the European insurance group, Mapfre Segures Generales. Lico Corporation provides financial, real estate, insurance and debt-collecting services in the Spanish market.

According to the company press release, the acquisition gives T-Systems an edge in the Iberian market. Hitherto fore, T-Systems was a strong player in the Public and Automotive fields in Spain, and the Metrolico acquisition now inorganically increases its penetration in the other sectors as well. With physical presence in 66 locations all over Spain now, T-Systems has positioned itself as a key vendor for Spanish businesses.

Read more about the latest acquisition in the ICT industry, here.

Next Page »