Barker Bites Back
A look at some newsy stuff and interesting bits as well as those hopefully amusing byways of technology.
Wednesday 27 June 2007, 12:59 PM
Cray comes fighting back
IBM's time dominating the top of the supercomputing pile has ended for now.Although the Armonk giant may still hold the number one spot in the latest supercomputer Top 500 still it no longer holds the top five spots as it did last year .So well done to the people from Cray for clawing back the number two and number three positions.
And surely the most surprising contender when it first appeared, Dell, is still there, clutching on to number eight position (down from six last year) and with SGI in number 10 spot, doing its but to stop IBM ruling the roost.
So well done to IBM for holding six of the top 10 spots but stay on your toes, others are waiting for any sign of weakness.
Wednesday 20 June 2007, 6:33 PM
The collected thoughts of Mark Hurd
Mark Hurd went from running NCR to running what is now, arguably, the largest IT company in the world, HP. He must be doing something right so here are some collected thoughts of the great man taken from two sessions held this week at HP's gathering in Las Vegas (see story). And he likes numbers. Big numbers. Lots of big numbers. In fact he has an amazing command of big numbers.
1. How big can HP get?
"Analysts estimate that HP will be roughly $100bn company."
2. What was wrong at HP before he strode into town?
"At HP our costs were expanding quicker than our revenue. That is not a good situation."
3. What is right at HP, now he is in town?
"Costs were the same at HP in 2007 that they were in 2005. We have been efficient and able to grow at the same time."
4. Wisdom.
"When the supply chains breaks, bad stuff happens."
5. On R&D.
"HP has had $20 bn in R&D in the last five years."
6. Numbers.
"The company ships three printers every second. We ship two PCs a second. We ship a server every 10 seconds."
7. Why truth makes life simpler.
"We have one version of the truth for HP."
8. On limitations.
"People come to me with ideas for new products and sometime I have to say we can't do it. And I can't acquire everybody." HP bought another company on Monday.
9. On the environment.
10. On the difference in HP.
"Twenty years ago roughly 70 percent of the company was hardware. Last year, roughly 70 percent was software.
Friday 15 June 2007, 10:22 AM
IBM's non-announcement-announcement
What is wrong with IBM? On Wednesday the company sort of announced that it had a blade server for SMEs. I say sort of announced because while IBM said it was launching a blade for SMEs, which would have been a neat trick since blade's are complex and expensive, it did not actually tell us anything about this "virtual" blade. Instead, the press release droned on (and on and on) telling us about the potential benefits of blades for SMEs without telling us anything about the blade itself. Nothing at all in fact.
What IBM did go into some detail about was telling us that: "IBM's future direction and intent are subject to change or withdrawal without notice".
And more of the same.
So what are we to glean from this. Simple, IBM may be launching a blade for SMEs but not until the fourth quarter of this year and not
even then, possibly.
This sort of non-announment went out of fashion soon after various companies were sued forspoiling markets by pre-announcing non-existent products. ( eg "Don't by so-and-so's blade now, ours is coming along soon and will be MUCH better.")
Hopefully that sort of drastic action is not needed now. Come on IBM, we expect better of you than that.
