News Corp.'s alleged dance with Microsoft's Bing and Rupert Murdoch's big plan to de-index from Google is likely to be nothing more than saber rattling to secure a semi-respectable MySpace... Continued »
Updated: The Federal Aviation Authority is looking into a networking problem that threatens to delay flights across the U.S.
FAA spokesman Les Dorr said that there’s a “problem with the telecommunications network that’s affecting automated processing system” for things like flight plans.
“Anything controllers normally have done automatically have to be done manually,” said Dorr. Indeed, the FAA has a ground stop. Atlanta is the hub that appears to be most affected, reports CBS News.
According to the FAA, the problems reside in the FAA Telecommunications Infrastructure, or FTI for short. FTI provides the voice, data, and video communications that support operations and mission support functions at more than 4,000 FAA and Department of Defense (DoD) facilities. Add it up and the network provides for more than 20,000 services such as switching and routing, network monitoring and control.
The FAA is currently investigating the problem. Dorr reiterated that the FAA can track planes with radar and have communication with pilots, but there’s an efficiency issue: You can only keep tabs on so many planes manually.
Netbooks — those underpowered mini laptops with 7-inch screens and unusable little keyboards — are a dying fad. However, the legacy of the netbook will be that inexpensive notebook computers are here to stay, and they are lighter and thinner than ever.
Analysts and pundits will continue to use the term “netbook” but I’m going to argue that the device that we originally called the netbook is being phased out — and thankfully so.
I have a netbook. It’s small—9 inches—and it now belongs to my daughter. My hands are too big. The screen is too cramped. And I’m inclined to think that Jason’s right. The netbook is just a passing fancy.
And then I follow the numbers. Look at all the people buying netbooks. NPD’s DisplaySearch reckons that netbook sales surged 264 percent in the second quarter from a year ago. Revenue for the overall notebook market declined. Here’s the scorecard.
The special thing about it that makes me happy is that it’s small and so handy. I don’t need to play games or do lots of complicated things on the street. But this one is just 100% what I need and I will never give it up.
And.
I bought a Dell Mini 9 in 2008 and have never regretted it. It’s small enough to carry in my purse, boots up quick, and maybe it’s because I have small fingers, but the size of the keyboard has never been an issue.
That said, it is not my main PC, nor would I ever try to make it such. I bought it to browse the internet and do some light word processing - the heaviest lifting I have ever asked it to do is stream movies across my wireless home network - and it has always performed flawlessly.
And.
I bought mine due to travel restrictions imposed by the airlines on a trip to Australia in 2008 and love it. I use a regular laptop/notebook as my main computer at home but it is too big and heavy to travel with. The Netbook allows me to use almost all my programs, some engineering, spreadsheets, topographic maps and GPS routings. I even use it at home with my wireless network, sometimes in bed at night while reading books on exploring Utah so I can see the topographic maps and the satellite pictures of the area. No it doesn’t replace the desktop notebook but darn near.
Netbooks aren’t for me, but apparently there are a ton of allegedly confused consumers still buying them. Dell and Microsoft have downplayed the netbook to some degree, but what else are they going to do? After all, the netbook is a margin killer.
So what’s the future of the netbook? It’s way too predictable to envision lightweight notebooks replacing the netbooks. Netbook 2.0, 3.0 and 4.0 are likely to have different form factors. Perhaps the Droid and the iPhone are really your netbooks. Perhaps Apple redefines the netbook category with a tablet. Perhaps people keep buying the current versions of netbooks. Netbooks will hang around and probably thrive because people like second and third computing devices. The form factor may change, but the market niche isn’t going anywhere.
IBM on Monday will unveil Blue Insight, a massive business analytics cloud that will hold more than a petabyte of data. This internal cloud computing environment will be the basis for future external services.
Internally, IBM’s effort is dubbed Blue Insight, a business analytics cloud that will give 200,000 employees access to key corporate data around the world. Blue Insight will suck in data from 100 different data stores and warehouses. The data will then be dished out to salespeople and developers.
According to IBM, Blue Insight is a showcase of the “eat your own dogfood” mantra. The system is built using Cognos, IBM’s business intelligence software, and hardware systems such as System Z, the company’s mainframe (right).
Going forward, IBM said it will add structured and unstructured data to Blue Insight. Some of this data will include revenue forecasts and sales quotas, product breakdowns, queries from real-time data and inventory levels and defects.
Increasingly, companies like IBM and HP are revamping their internal operations and then using those learnings to sell to customers. In IBM’s case, the architecture behind Blue Insight will be used to form the Smart Analytics Cloud for customers.
The Smart Analytics Cloud aims to provide “easily consumable business intelligence services, systems and software.” The bundle will include business intelligence services, Cognos and mainframes.
IBM added that it plans on focusing on the easily consumable part. To make business intelligence easier to digest, IBM said it will use Web 2.0-ish dashboards. In a backgrounder, IBM writes:
A key focus area of the Smart Analytics Cloud is rapid service deployment and end user acceptance. With agile Web 2.0 toolkits, user registration applications are easily created. Corporate processes are automated using IBM freeware and guidance documentation.
Guest post: HP is purchasing 3Com. With every merger comes some customer trepidation about changes that could be made. TechRepublic’s Scott Lowe lists four items he’ll watch during the merger to decide if Procurve continues to be a viable solution. This ran on TechRepublic’s IT Leadership blog.
HP and 3Com announced that HP will acquire 3Com for about $2.7 billion. Obviously, with HP’s Procurve unit currently the only company other than Cisco to enjoy a spot in Gartner’s leadership quadrant for enterprise LAN and 3Com’s focus on all things networking, there is quite a bit of overlap between HP’s current offerings and those provided by 3Com. At the same time, this acquisition will help HP expand their share of the networking market. But there is a distinct possibility that HP’s expansion in enterprise LAN and the resulting product changes that will probably have to take place could change HP’s current approach, which have been very customer-friendly, to policies that might not be quite as beneficial to the customer but that would improve the bottom line for HP.
At Westminster College, we’re committed HP Procurve customers; we jettisoned our Cisco infrastructure back in the Spring of 2007 and have been extremely happy ever since, both from a functional standpoint as well as from a financial standpoint. Frankly, I’m a pretty big Procurve fan. As far as 3Com is concerned, the company, in my opinion, hasn’t exactly made particularly good decisions over the years. Back in 1999, I had just completed the installation of a 3Com CoreBuilder 9000 core switch when 3Com made the surprise announcement that the company was exiting the enterprise networking space. Part of me is happy to see HP acquiring 3Com and I hope that the merger goes smoothly. There are, however, a few items I’ll watch for. Note that the items on my list are considered as an existing HP customer.
Cisco and HP have been duking it over their visions for the next generation data center architecture and the battle is just getting interesting. Cisco entered the server market and HP has countered by purchasing 3Com for $2.7 billion.
Simply put, both Cisco and HP have encroached on their rival’s home turf. The 3Com purchase gives HP a foothold in security (3Com owns TippingPoint), switches and routers (statement, breaking news). HP also becomes the No. 2 networking vendor. Cisco CEO John Chambers foreshadowed the HP collision course back in August. He declared HP a clear foe.
Who among IT workers has never been involved in a mad scramble - a crisis situation, if you will - because of server failure? Maybe it caused your site’s home page to go down or the e-mail system to become disabled or maybe the e-commerce system to crash. Whatever the problem, when a server crashes, it’s never any fun.
In today’s world of virtual everything, the idea of outsourcing server space is something that IT departments are seriously weighing. Today, Rackspace - which, of course, is in the business of providing the server space for businesses - launched a No More Servers campaign and released the results of a survey that found that half of all businesses surveyed would “love to never have to buy another server again.”
It’s been a week chock full of IT surveys. Yesterday, I posted some details on a survey that found that 40 percent of IT professionals (and an even higher number of executives) are still confused by cloud computing - and that could be delaying adoption in the enterprise. Jason Hiner has a posted some results as it relates to CIOs - a post yesterday that revealed that IT budget slashing, which was rampant last year, won’t be as bad this year. In a post today, Hiner revealed that 76 percent of CIOs time is spent on non-technical issues
We’ve written time and time again about how IT workers spend so much time reacting to issues and working to just keep the engine humming that there’s no time left for work that benefits the growth of the business. So what do they spend their time doing? The results of the survey paint that picture:
IT teams said they spend about 60 percent of their time troubleshooting and managing servers.
IT managers suffer from “server stress,” who cite the need to be available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week as one of the leading causes.
More than half (51 percent) admit to making mistakes in the server capacity planning - with 15 percent buying too many servers and 36 percent underestimating their needs.
When it comes to their thoughts on new technologies, 35 percent considered themselves to be “proactive and slightly ahead of the curve” while 28 percent tend to be “cautious and reactive.”
Juniper Networks on Thursday unveiled an armada of new gear, software and chips that it hopes will ding Cisco Systems while positioning the company well in the next generation data center.
The networking company will roll out its strategy at the New York Stock Exchange later today (statement). Juniper’s strategy positions the company’s network operating system, Junos, as a centerpiece of the enterprise network while surrounding it with a bevy of new systems including processors that offer “3D Scaling.” In a nutshell, 3D Scaling is expected to allow for more subscribers, services and bandwidth to be squeezed into the network.
For Juniper, the product overhaul represents a repositioning as the center of the network. Juniper CEO Kevin Johnson called the repositioning a “historic day” for the company that highlights the vision for the next decade of networking. “Juniper believes it’s time for a new approach to networking. An approach based on smart systems and open software platforms. An approach that adapts to changing business dynamics. An approach that embraces partnership and unleashes innovation,” said Johnson.
Juniper’s biggest brother in this adventure is IBM, which has an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) partnership. The companies said that IBM is now shipping to customers a suite of Ethernet networking products to customers. In addition, Juniper has surrounded itself with a bevy of other partners such as Dell.
The game appears to position Juniper as a Switzerland type neutral and open figure as larger players vie to become the dominant data center architecture.
Among the moving parts from Juniper:
The company unveiled new Junos software platform. Junos, a network operating system that runs behind the scenes, is Juniper’s answer to Cisco’s Internetwork Operating System (IOS). Junos has been updated to program layers of the network for rich user interfaces. Juniper’s platform consists of the Junos operating system, a Junos Space network application platform and Pulse, a network client.
Juniper rolled out new processors. The company touted a new Junos One family of processors. The linchpin here is a Junos Trio chipset with 3D Scaling, which allows enterprises to cram more onto a network. Junos Trio will be delivered in new line cards and 3.5 inch routers for the Juniper MX Series. The Junos chips are the fourth generation. There are 30 patents in the architecture. Juniper founder and CTO Pradeep Sindhu said in a statement that the company has invested more than $80 million over the last five years developing the processor line.
Juniper introduced new edge routers based on its software and new processors. The systems, dubbed MX 3D, carry some heady claims including dramatic cuts in operating expenses for carriers. Juniper is claiming that the MX Series can provide up to 2.6 terabits per second with less power consumption. To put that throughput into perspective 2.6 terabits per second equates to 8.5 million iTunes downloads in one tenth of a second or 50 Blu-ray DVDs downloaded in less than 5 seconds.
The MX 3D introductions include new line cards and two new routers. The products will be available in December and throughout 2010.
The company is offering cloud services based on its systems. Virtualized security services are the headliner here and Juniper is also offering new support for VMware and Citrix.
Intel and Numonyx said Wednesday that they have found a way to stack phase change memory (PCM) arrays of on one die.
Phase change memory is a new non-volatile technology that features some of the best aspects of various memory types (think DRAM and Flash).
The companies said that the ability to stack PCM means that devices with more memory capacity, lower power consumption and space savings are possible. Numonyx is a flash memory specialist founded by Intel, STMicroelectronics and Francisco Partners.
According to Intel and Numonyx (statement), the companies will present its findings in a joint paper titled “A Stackable Cross Point Phase Change Memory.” The paper will be presented at the 2009 International Electron Devices Meeting in Baltimore, Md. on Dec. 9.
Juniper has delivered an appetizer with Dell on the way to what could be an comprehensive assault on Cisco on Thursday.
On Tuesday, Dell and Juniper announced a partnership to sell the networking company’s gear under the PC maker’s PowerConnect brand. The companies said their collaboration will allow customers to deploy a common network management platform and operating system.
Meanwhile, Dell and Juniper said they will collaborate on open standards for virtualized data centers (statement). Under the OEM pact, Dell and Juniper will tag team on MX Series Routers, EX Series Ethernet Switches, SRX Series Services Gateways and Junos Software.
Where’s this headed?
Juniper for weeks has been touting its analyst meeting on Thursday at the New York Stock Exchange. While details aren’t available, Juniper CEO Kevin Johnson and CTO Pradeep Sindhu are expected to outline the company’s vision and strategic initiatives.
I don’t have to design data centers, but I do have to play a knowledgeable wonk on the Web from time to time. With that in mind, I attended two data center presentations at the Gartner IT Symposium to see what I could learn.
My knowledge about the data center essentially boils down to one word: Money. Companies are building new data centers to save money on power and better utilize their computing power. Sure, cloud computing is a factor, but a small one for enterprises at this juncture. These people are building data centers in a big way. The other money point: Vendors are killing each other to be the data center king. Cisco takes on HP. IBM is in there. Oracle too (via Sun). And unfortunately for IT buyers each vendor has a different twist on data center architecture.
Simply put, I’m a data center economics major with a minor in things like raised floors, cooling systems, server racks and other items.
Here’s what I learned:
Companies are only building what they need. A weak economy and green IT initiatives mean that techies are increasingly going to be judged by their data center savings, says David Cappuccio, an analyst at Gartner. An efficient data center design can cut the footprint by 60 percent.
Tiers are being mixed and matched with one data center. Data centers have tiers of availability. Tier 1 is 99.6 percent uptime and Tier 4 is 99.995 percent with Tier 2 and Tier 3 in between. To build a Tier 1 10,000 square-foot facility the cost is $9.94 million. Tier 4 will run you $34.5 million, according to Gartner.
One of the more recent trends is to mix and match tiers within one facility. With this approach, you can segment applications based on the importance to the business.
Everyone has a box for mid-sized and large businesses. IBM, Rackable, Sun, Verari Systems and HP all have trailers (right) that can extend data centers and deploy in 12 to 14 weeks. Cappuccio noted that Microsoft has a large 200-and-more-container deployment at its Chicago data center. Microsoft is also experimenting with wind-powered containers. For mid-sized companies these containers could become an alternative to traditional data centers—slap these boxes on a slab and go.
Pod architecture. Cappuccio noted that previous data center design principles went like this: Build a facility for today, estimate what you’ll need in 20 years, and go. Today, it’s all about pods. With this approach you figure out how much space you need, say 15,000 square feet, and then build out for five to seven years. Then you add pods as you grow. Pods also allow for retrofitting so a data center complex can last 40 to 50 years.
Combine pod architectures with density zones. Cappuccio added that data centers should be designed by density zones. High-density applications (200 watts per square foot) represent 10 percent to 15 percent of a total data center usage. Medium-density apps (150 watts per square foot) account for another 20 percent. The rest is low-density (100 watts per square foot). If you mix and match densities you save money on the build-out. The density zone approach is likely to be used in the majority of new or retrofitted data centers by 2013. Double bonus if you take the pod architecture and use density zones.
The money chart:
Raised floors are passe. Anyone who has been in a traditional data center knows that raised floors, anywhere from 12 to 18 inches to 24 to 48 inches, are the norm. If you design a data center properly you can use a concrete slab for the build out. Building on a slab can be $20 per square foot cheaper than a raised floor.
And once you learn the data center principles all you have to do is evaluate all of these vendor data center visions dancing around. The field: Cisco, Oracle, HP, IBM and VMware. You can toss Dell, Microsoft, Amazon and Google into the mix too. The big takeaways from Gartner’s talk on the vendor data center vision are:
Don’t get locked into anything proprietary;
The tectonic plates between these vendors are still shifting;
Don’t let any one vendor creep to the point where it controls your budget. Data centers aren’t meant to be homogeneous.
That final point is very notable. Most data center players have adjacent products and if you’re not careful your entire enterprise could depend on one big name.
While attending Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2009, I spoke with Laef Olson, CIO of RightNow Technologies, about the company’s IT plans for 2010. Olson discussed RightNow’s plans to consolidate and rework its datacenters, an upcoming ERP implementation, and the company’s migration to Windows 7.
Barnes & Noble unveiled its Nook e-reader, the latest in a line of alleged Kindle killers, and much of the chatter revolves around open standards, touch features, a little color and competition. The reality: Retail distribution may be much more important to winning the e-reader race.
Barnes & Noble’s Nook will run $259, have 3G and Wi-Fi access and be open. The Nook also runs on Android and has a color screen (Techmeme). But here are some overlooked elements in the Barnes & Noble statement:
HP CEO Mark Hurd is big on cloud computing, but acknowledges its limits. For instance, HP “wouldn’t put anything material in nature outside the firewall.” The message: The cloud has its place, but there’s a vast difference between private and public computing.
Credit: Larry Dignan
Hurd’s talk, a Q&A with Gartner analysts David Cearley and Donna Scott at the IT Symposium, came amid a weak enterprise technology spending forecast for 2010, the integration of EDS and a scrum over the architecture of the next-generation data center. Hurd chose to stand during the interview and dabbled on a white board to make his points.
The HP chief covered a lot of ground, but his comments on cloud computing were the most interesting. Here’s a guy who was speaking as a CEO running a massive company that happens to sell infrastructure that’ll revolve around cloud computing.
Hurd said he was talking to CEOs about the cloud and representing the tech industry overall. He got jeers. Simply put, the term cloud computing isn’t so clear. CEOs want it broken down into more tools, said Hurd. The disconnect occurs due to business users that don’t quite follow cloud computing and vendors that view the technology as an attractive model.
The company plans to layer cloud services on its infrastructure in the future, but there will be a vast difference between private and public clouds.
“It’s a very attractive model that can drive a lot of innovation into the market,” said Hurd. But there are hurdles. CEOs do question the cloud sometimes and you can add Hurd to that club. For instance, if HP CIO Randy Mott had a big idea and wanted to put general ledger and accounting in the cloud Hurd said he “would send him back to work.”
Hurd clarified that the difference is between internal and external cloud. “We have 1,000 hacks a day and I can’t tell you why, but they keep showing up. We wouldn’t put anything material in nature outside the firewall,” said Hurd.
Data warehousing giant Teradata is outlining its cloud computing strategy including an internal cloud service and a public offering via Amazon Web Services. In addition, Teradata is rolling out an appliance it claims will provide a big performance boost.
The announcements, timed for Teradata’s partner conference in Washington D.C., this week highlight how the stakes are being raised in the data warehousing space. Teradata is battling larger foes like Oracle with its Exadata appliance, HP and smaller players such as Netezza.
Teradata is rolling out a bevy of new initiatives, but the most notable one is its cloud strategy. Teradata has a multi-pronged strategy that includes an internal cloud offering for customers—housed in the vendor’s data center—and a public rollout with Amazon Web Services’ Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2).
AMD reported a smaller-than-expected loss and said it saw growth in unit shipments for its microprocessors and graphics chips.
The company, which had a tough act to follow given Intel’s blowout third quarter, reported a net loss of $128 million, or 18 cents a share, on revenue of $1.4 billion for the quarter ended Sept. 30 (statement). The quarter was helped by a net gain of $54 million, or 8 cents a share, due to the repurchase of debt. AMD’s operating loss was $77 million. Wall Street was expecting a loss of 42 cents a share on revenue of $1.26 billion, according to Thomson Reuters.
As for the outlook, AMD said fourth quarter would be “up modestly.”
Simply put, AMD is moving in the right direction. Third quarter revenue was up 18 percent from the second quarter, but still down 22 percent from a year ago. Meanwhile, AMD said that its “product company,” the marketing and design arm, had non-GAAP net income of $2 million. AMD completed the spin-off of its manufacturing unit in March.
AMD said average selling prices improved as did shipments. In addition, AMD said that third quarter gross margins improved to 42 percent, up from 37 percent in the second quarter.
IBM delivered a solid third quarter that featured better-than-expected profit and revenue growth. The company also upped its earnings targets for 2009.
IBM on Thursday reported third quarter net income of $3.1 billion, or $2.40 a share, on revenue of $23.6 billion, down 7 percent from a year ago. Wall Street was looking for earnings of $2.38 a share on revenue of $23.4 billion.
The outlook was also solid. IBM is expecting 2009 earnings to be about $9.85 a share, up from a previous projection of $9.70 a share. Wall Street had IBM at $9.78 for the year. On a conference call with analysts, IBM CFO Mark Loughridge said the company gained market share in both hardware and software. In software Websphere gained 3 percent market share on Oracle middleware, said Loughridge. On the hardware side, “we’re taking it (share) from both Sun and HP,” he added.
As usual, IBM’s quarterly picture was really about services and software. For the three months ended Sept. 30, IBM’s global technology services unit had revenue of $9.43 billion, down 4.4 percent from $9.86 billion a year ago. Global business services revenue was $4.34 billion, down 11.5 percent from $4.9 billion a year ago. Loughridge was bullish on IBM’s ability to sign deals in the fourth quarter and said “some early signs were encouraging.”
Loughridge added that corporate demand has stabilized going into 2010 with an improving sales pipeline. Loughridge said that’s a substantial improvement and IBM has multiple opportunities ahead. Analysts, however, sounded like they wanted more from IBM’s outlook.
Here’s a look at how IBM’s services unit fared in the quarter (statement, presentation):
Some Tandberg shareholders are reportedly rejecting Cisco Systems’ $3 billion cash tender for the video conferencing player and the reason is clear: Tandberg is delivering heady growth in a downturn.
Shareholders that own more than 24 percent of Tandberg want to block the Cisco proposed buyout (Techmeme). Why? It’s about the growth.
Tandberg released its third quarter results Thursday and management reiterated that shareholders should take the Cisco offer (statement). Executives also said that they will operate under their existing compensation packages and stay with Cisco going forward.
But Tandberg is a company delivering third quarter revenue growth of 11.6 percent from a year ago. Operating profit was up 10.2 percent. And these results come as many companies consider down single digits to be the new up 10 percent.
Here’s a look at Tandberg’s trend lines.
Cisco isn’t likely to budge much unless more shareholders reject the buyout offer, but you can hardly blame a few investors for asking for more.
Global PC shipments came in at 80.9 million in the third quarter, up 0.5 percent from a year ago, according to Gartner.
OK, a 0.5 percent increase is a bit of a joke in most years, but after the shellacking the tech industry took in late 2008 and early 2009, vendors will take it. Gartner was expecting PC shipments to fall 5.6 percent in the third quarter (statement). Also see:Sam’s take on the IDC figures for the quarter.
Consumers continued to lead growth by gobbling up netbooks and cheap mobile PCs during back-to-school salses. Here’s the worldwide scorecard for the quarter:
And the U.S. picture where Apple, Acer and Toshiba are posting the largest growth gains.
Oracle CEO Larry Ellison took the stage for the final keynote at Oracle OpenWorld 2009 today - an afternoon session that followed lunch and got off to a rough start when Infosys CEO Kris Gopalakrishnan (who was scheduled to speak after Ellison) came on stage first and spent 45 minutes delivering a somewhat dry presentation.
It probably didn’t help that attendees were reminded that there’s a big party tonight. The Who’s Roger Daltrey, who will be performing tonight, made a cameo appearance at the beginning of the session to say he was looking forward to seeing everyone later in the evening.
And so, as the show comes down the home stretch and people are anxious to let their hair down a bit tonight, Ellison walked on to the stage and pretty much got right down to business by announcing that he had four things to talk about: a Linux update, information on Exadata 2, a demo of a product support system and a preview of next generation app called Fusion.
First, Linux. Oracle has been in the Linux business for a while now but Ellison said the company was surprised by the interest in Linux. He noted that the Oracle’s virtual machine will run any OS, such as Windows or Solaris and, of course, Oracle Enterprise Linux. What was surprising, he said, were the results of an HP survey which asked customers running Linux under an Oracle database which Linux they were using. About 65 percent said they were using Oracle Enterprise Linux.
Then, we moved on to Exadata 2, Ellison’s love child that brings together the combination of technology from Oracle and Sun and allows him to take jabs at rival IBM. This is one powerful machine, he notes, that runs 16 times faster than IBM. (Jab No. 1) But wait, he said. IBM has challenged that response, saying that it doesn’t run 16 times faster but only SIX times faster.
Long pause. Cheesy grin from Ellison. Laughter and applause from audience.
“They may be right,” Ellison said with a smirk on his face. Maybe Oracle is only 6 times faster. (Jab No. 2)
At Oracle’s OpenWorld conference in San Francisco, CEO Larry Ellison previews the company’s Exadata Version 2 computer. He says the new database computer is designed for online transaction processing and data warehousing. He adds that Exadata 2 can do faster processing at a much lower cost than can its biggest competitor, IBM.
Netezza President and CEO Jim Baum fired back after Ellison called out his company. Baum said in a statement:
Absent from Oracle today was any vision for a future rooted in advanced data analytics. The future of data warehousing isn’t about system vendor consolidation. Organizations want to do more than ‘keep up’ with growing amounts of data. The future is about moving from the data center to the desktop - delivering previously impossibly analytics on massive amounts of data to everyone that needs it. Companies want to learn something. Predict. Adapt as fast possible, without super computers and without great expense or a single massive check to a systems vendor.
Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and Editorial Director of ZDNet sister site TechRepublic. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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I have a netbook. It’s small—9 inches—and it now belongs to my daughter. My hands are too big. The screen is too cramped. And I’m inclined to think that Jason’s right. The netbook is just a passing fancy.
Everyone has a box for mid-sized and large businesses. IBM, Rackable, Sun, Verari Systems and HP all have trailers (right) that can extend data centers and deploy in 12 to 14 weeks. Cappuccio noted that Microsoft has a large 200-and-more-container deployment at its Chicago data center. Microsoft is also experimenting with wind-powered containers. For mid-sized companies these containers could become an alternative to traditional data centers—slap these boxes on a slab and go.
Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and Editorial Director of ZDNet sister site TechRepublic. See his 
