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  • Rackable Systems Announces First Quarter Fiscal 2009 Financial Results


    Rackable Systems this week announced its financial results for the first quarter of fiscal year 2009.

    The ecological server and storage product provider reported Q1 revenue of USD $44.4 Million, up 14 percent sequentially, including delivery of two ICE Cube containerized data centers.

    Total revenue for the first quarter ending April 4, 2009, was USD $44.4 million, compared to USD $38.8 million for the fourth quarter of 2008 and USD $67.8 million in the first quarter of 2008.

    Mark J. Barrenechea, president and CEO of Rackable Systems, said he was pleased with its revenue and working capital progress quarter over quarter.

    But he admitted dissatisfaction with the overall results.

    "Although the economic turmoil will remain a challenge in 2009, we are focused on accelerating innovative products to market, controlling expenses and completing the acquisition of Silicon Graphics’ assets, enabling us to achieve better gross margins and customer diversification," he said.

    Rackable Systems ended the first quarter of 2009 with USD $181.2 million in cash, cash equivalents, long-term and short-term investments, compared to USD $180.6 million at the end of last quarter.

    The company’s lower gross margin was attributed to three factors:

    • reducing high-cost inventories of certain components through aggressive pricing
    • the significant revenue mix of our large Internet data center business
    • increased competitive pressure from various server vendors offering aggressive deals during the quarter

    Rackable Systems has received court approval to acquire substantially all the assets of Silicon Graphics, Inc. for USD $42.5 million in cash, plus the assumption of certain liabilities associated with the acquired assets.

    The acquisition is anticipated to be completed by approximately in May subject to the satisfaction of closing conditions.

  • Powerfile Launches Fixed Content Storage Platform


    PowerFile has announced its new enterprise-class Hybrid Storage Appliance optimized for long-term storage of fixed content.

    The storage provider said the purpose-built platform delivers "the performance of disk, the economy of tape, and superior reliability and data integrity".

    The PowerFile HSA offers petabyte-class scalability and virtualization of the underlying storage technologies to create an integrated appliance.

    PowerFile said that by combining intelligent storage management software and sophisticated file management with cost-effective, robust hardware, the HSA could significantly lower both CAPEX and OPEX.

    Leading analysts estimate that up to 80 per cent of enterprise data is fixed content and organizations are holding onto that data for longer retention periods based on corporate policies for litigation support and regulatory compliance.

    Relocating this data from Tier 1 or Tier 2 disk to a PowerFile HSA can provide a huge advantage in driving down the cost of enterprise storage, eliminating the cost of unnecessary data migration operations every three to five years.

    Kirk Dunn, CEO at PowerFile, said there is no debate that using hard disk-based solutions for long-term storage of fixed content data is an unsustainable strategy for enterprises, given the crushing capital and ongoing operations expenses.

    "PowerFile’s hybrid storage approach breaks with convention by creating a new storage platform that provides performance when you need it, economy when you don’t and in the process eliminates most of the costs associated with the storage tax resulting in up to a 10x cost advantage over disk-based storage,’ he said.

    The new PowerFile Hybrid Storage Appliance has a data center-optimized design with up to 500 terabytes of capacity in a standard 42u rack.

    The energy-efficient design consumes 5 watts per TB, approximately 5 to 10 per cent of the energy usage compared to spinning disk, delivering substantial OPEX cost savings.

    It significantly reduces energy requirements for data centers that are nearing the limits of available energy capacity.

    The HSA is composed of three scalable units: the HSA System controller, utilizing dual quad-core processors to power the HybridOS operating system at enterprise speeds, the HSA Cache Array, a 12 to 48TB RAID array that provides sustained data ingestion to the HSA, and the HSA Library, a 4u enclosure with 25 TB of removable, Blu-ray-based capacity and up to 12 industry-standard Blu-ray drives.

    Up to 24 library modules can be added to a single HSA for a total system capacity of 1.2 petabytes. HSA components are connected via a high-speed, high-availability switched Ethernet backbone with Gigabit and 10 Gigabit options to precisely match the customer’s cost and performance requirements.

  • Service Offers To Double iPod Capacity To 240GB


    A US Company has started an iPod upgrading service that can expand an iPod to 240GB – or 48,000 tracks.

    Apple’s largest iPod is the 120GB classic which allows up to 24,000 tracks to be stored.

    While this would seems sufficient for most users, it seems it’s not enough for everyone.

    Rapid Repair offers to remove the old, "small" Apple HDD and replace it with a more advanced but same-sized 1.8" Toshiba 240GB storage unit.

    The operation also invalidates the Apple guarantee, according to SmallBusiness.

    To double the MP3 player’s capacity will cost USD $300 plus postage.

    Rapid Repairs says it is looking to extend its services to Zunes and other MP3 machines.

  • IBM Expands Midmarket Express Advantage Line


    IBM has broadened its lineup of Express Advantage products for midmarket with the launch of BladeCenter Express servers, a new data protection hardware/software package.

    It also unveiled the LotusLive Meetings hosted Web conferencing service.

    Express Advantage products and services are largely sold through IBM channel partners and are frequently offered with financing packages.

    Topping the list of the new products are the BladeCenter JS23 and JS43 Express servers, which are based on the Power6 processor technology and run on AIX, IBM i and Linux operating systems.

    IBM said the servers are ideal for midsize organizations undergoing infrastructure consolidation or running applications that require scalable performance and high memory capacity.

    A new hardware/software package that IBM is calling a "comprehensive data protection solution" includes the Tivoli Storage Manager FastBack software bundled with the DS3000, DS4000 and DS5000 Express series disk systems, and the System x 3550 server.

    IBM said the package offers a complete data storage and data recovery system.

    Many companies are increasingly using Web conferencing as they impose travel restrictions to cut costs.

    The Express Advantage services now include LotusLive Meetings, a Web conferencing service added to the LotusLive online services IBM unveiled earlier this year.

  • Consumer Storage Demand Continues To Soar


    Digital content in the average US household could reach 12 terabytes by 2014, according to researchers.

    A joint report by Coughlin Associates and Objective Analysis includes DVD libraries, which accounts for a large chunk of the 12TB total.

    Tom Coughlin, president of Coughlin Associates, estimates that half of the data is commercial content, like DVDs.

    Making up the remaining content is user generated data, such as photos, music, and videos, and downloaded material such as video on demand.

    It’s not surprising that since increasing numbers of people are downloading HD content from the likes of Netflix and iTunes this requires even greater storage capacity.

    Coughlin said that the trend was also for more physical media, like DVDs and music CDs, to end up being stored on disk.

    The reports suggest that key differentiators for storage vendors looking to service the home include:

    • remote storage access
    • privacy protection
    • disaster recovery
    • automatic backup
    • metadata
    • automated metadata generation of content

  • Can Blu-Ray Now Be Called Mainstream?


    The drop in the average price of Blu-Ray players is, not surprisingly, fuelling sales of the high-def disks.

    But figures out from NPD show that the effect of cheaper players could finally be giving the format mass market appeal.

    High hardware prices has long been given as a barrier to Blu-Ray technology becoming widely accepted.

    The average price of Blu-ray players dropped nearly 34 per cent over the last year, falling from USD $393 in Q1 2008 to USD $261 in Q1 2009.

    This, according to NPD’s Blu-ray Report, helped Q1 2009 sales of standalone Blu-ray players (not including PS3) to reach more than 400,000 units, marking a 72 per cent increase over Q1 2008.

    Sales totaled USD $107.2 million in the first quarter.

    Ross Rubin, director of industry analysis at NPD, said the rising penetration of high-definition televisions and lower Blu-ray player prices are broadening the format’s market opportunity.

    "Even as options expand for accessing movies digitally, Blu-ray is carrying forward the widespread appeal of DVD into the high-definition marketplace."

    Amidst these positive notes for Blu-Ray, NPD reports that 58 per cent of adults surveyed were still "not very familiar" with Blu-ray.

    Some work still to be done then.

  • HD Uptake Drives ZON's Q1 Figures


    Portugal’s leading cable provider ZON has doubled the take-up of its HD DVR.

    Called the ZON Box, it was installed in 93,000 homes in the first quarter of 2009, pushing total installations up to 184,000 – 12 per cent of the total customer base.

    ZON has attributed the success of the high-def product to an increase in per subscriber RGUs to 1.94, as ARPU grew by 3.5 per cent year-on-year to EUROS 32.7.

    The total number of subscribers receiving digital extended basic increased from 399,800 to 539,600.

    Premium pay-TV subscribers increased slightly to 835,300.

    Operating Revenues increased to EUROS 201.5 million in 1Q09, a year on year growth of 7.1 per cent giving an EBITDA increased to EUROS 64.3 million.

  • Apple Expected to Extend iPhone To Multiple Carriers


    Apple will almost certainly break with its exclusive AT&T agreement and allow other carriers to support the iPhone, according to analysts.

    Citigroup’s research firm say that while the arrangement with AT&T has benefitted Apple, the company is likely to open its smartphone to more US operators within the next two years.

    Analyst Richard Gardner cites a number of reasons for this, including the fact Apple is in a strong position and so can have its demands met by carriers.

    These extend to generous data plans, a lack of co-branding and an absence of revenue sharing at the App Store.

    What is also likely to be a major issue for Apple is the potentially dwindling pool of new iPhone users at AT&T.

    It is estimated that rivals Sprint, Verizon and T-Mobile combined could offer a target market of up to 150 million subscribers by 2010 (although only around 20 per cent are likely to become iPhone owners).

    While it has been suggested that AT&T is interested in paying to extend exclusivity, the cost to do so might be prohibitive.

    As Gardner points it would need to be high since the revenues offered by going with multiple carriers are large.

  • PayPal App Introduced To Android


    Making payments just got a little easier for owners of an Android phone with the news that PayPal has introduced its app in the Android Market.

    The e-commerce business says that the app gives users easy access to many of its popular features.

    The eBay subsidiary also stresses that for those worried about security, it uses the same technology and safeguards that they have for the web client.

    Some of the features include:

    • Direct integration with the contact list – Users select a name from contacts to make a payment
    • Recent history – A smartphone can be used to look at transactions over the last couple of months
    • Balance checks – balances in any of the currencies held can be shown

  • HP and RIM Announce Strategic Alliance to Mobilize Business on BlackBerry


    RIM and HP are partnering together to offer Blackberry business users some features which they say will allow mobile workers to increase their productivity levels.

    Among the first applications and services for the smartphones is printing service that enables users to easily print to the nearest printer.

    Called CloudPrint for BlackBerry, it will allow users to store and print documents, photos and web pages while traveling using the smartphone.

    The service is printer-agnostic and driverless and requires simple Internet access.

    Another offering will allow the management of companies’ BlackBerry smartphone deployments to be outsourced.

    HP and RIM plan to design and launch other offerings targeted at the growing number of global mobile employees.