Posted 11/17/09 at 07:05:50 AM by Paul Lilly

HP on Monday launched a whole bunch of new hardware and software products, including a blade system the OEM claims can fit two systems in the physical space of one.

The company's ProLiant BL2x220c G6 combines two server nodes in a single blade chassis and supports up to two 4-core low voltage Intel Xeon 5500 series processors per node. And according to HP, the G6 increases memory capacity by 33 percent over previous generation blade server products.

HP's G6 is one of several products aimed at extending the company's Extreme Scale-Out (ExSO) portfolio introduced in June. The goal, HP says, is to cut back the total cost of ownership while also increasing data center capacity.

"The ExSO portfolio was created to meet the demanding needs of scale-out as well as high-performance computing customers that require highly efficient and powerful computing infrastructures," said Steve Cumings, director of Marketing for the Scalable Computing and Infrastructure organization at HP. "We will continue to add to this portfolio, delivering innovative solutions based on our deep understanding of scale-out data centers and enabling our customers to gain more value from their infrastructure."

More info here and here.

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Posted 11/17/09 at 07:05:34 AM by Paul Lilly

3Com's board of directors and the company's shareholders appear to be at odds over a proposed $2.7 billion merger agreement with HP that was announced last week. Displeased with the potential merger, the shareholders have filed a class action lawsuit in hopes of preventing the deal.

The complaint names the entire company's board of directors and accuses the defendants of attempting to deceive 3Com shareholders by agreeing to a deal that undermines the true value of their investment in the company, TechCrunch reports.

Under terms of the agreement, HP would pay stockholders of 3Com $7.90 per share, but the bankruptcy lawyer who filed the case on behalf of the plaintiffs argues that 3Com's directors should have insisted on a higher price.

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Posted 11/12/09 at 07:06:30 AM by Paul Lilly

In a blockbuster deal, Hewlett Packard on Wednesday announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to purchase 3Com at a price of $7.90 per share. That breaks down to about $2.7 billion and puts HP, which is already a strong networking company, in a better position to compete with Cisco.

"“Companies are looking for ways to break free from the business limitations imposed by a networking paradigm that has been dominated by a single vendor," said Dave Donatelli, executive vice president and general manager, Enterprise Servers and Networking, HP. "By acquiring 3Com, we are accelerating the execution of our Converged Infrastructure strategy and bringing disruptive change to the networking industry. By combining HP ProCurve offerings with 3Com’s extensive set of solutions, we will enable customers to build a next-generation network infrastructure that supports customer needs from the edge of the network to the heart of the data center."

The acquisition will help HP build its networking portfolio, particularly in expanding the company's Ethernet switching offerings and routing solutions, HP said the move will also help strengthen its position in the fast growing Chinese market.

Terms of the transaction have already been approved by the HP and 3Com board of directors and is expected to close in the first half of 2010.

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Posted 11/11/09 at 07:04:03 AM by Paul Lilly

Hewlett-Packard is stepping up to the plate with improved data protection and better backup solutions for small and medium businesses, The Register reports.

First on the list is HP's LeftHand Networks P4000 SMB storage area network (SAN) lineup, which will now come equipped with application-integrated snapshots. This will make it easier on admins, who can use the P4000 GUI to signal that a snapshot needs to be made of a volume, and the P4000 array software will handle the rest.

The second change comes to HP's Disk-to-Disk (D2D) backup product, which has been given a file interface allowing applications to view it as a NAS box. In the long-run, customers will be able to reduce their reliance on tape.

For those who want to keep using tape, HP introduced its new DAT320 tape drive. The 8mm DAT320 packs 320GB, or twice as much as the DAT160.

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Posted 11/10/09 at 03:30:00 PM by The Maximum PC Staff

You read that right. HP has generously donated one of their slick new ENVY 13 notebooks for us to give away. Announced two months ago, the ENVY 13 is a powerful workhorse packed into a stunning chassis, with the specs to prove it. The model we're giving away is equipped with a 2.13 Core 2 Duo, 5GB of DDR3 SDRAM, a 250GB HD, and sports a beautiful 13.1" LED screen (1600x900 resolution). From our hands-on time with the notebook, we were definitely impressed by its radiant display, which put a comparably-sized Macbook Air to shame. And yes, it comes with Windows 7. The contest starts today (Nov 10th) and runs for two weeks, and you'll have to hit the jump to find out how to enter. 

 Read on to get more details about the ENVY 13 and official contest rules!

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Posted 11/09/09 at 04:53:54 PM by Michael Brown

HP’s new 27-inch 2709m is considerably larger than the rest of these displays; it’s also more expensive ($400).

The 2709m offers the same native resolution as the rest of the field, so it spreads the same number of pixels over a much larger area. As a result, DisplayMate’s high-resolution sample photos looked just a bit softer than they did on the smaller monitors. The HP also did a poor job of rendering very small text.

Those criticisms don’t matter when you’re watching a Blu-ray movie or gaming—this big screen shines here, and you needn’t worry about your videocard supporting an insanely high resolution as you would with a 30-inch display.  Unfortunately, the 2709m suffers from the same specular reflection problems as Gateway’s mirror-like FHX2300.

Continue reading this review after the jump.

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Posted 11/04/09 at 09:05:40 PM by Ryan Whitwam

HP may have jumped the gun a bit when they listed an “Envy 14-1000” on a support page recently. The Envy line of laptops currently come in 13 and 15-inch varieties. The PCs bear a striking resemblance to Apple’s MacBook Pro line with chiclet keys and large trackpads. The Envy 13 packs a Core 2 chip, while the Envy 15 is equipped with a Core i7. Might we see a Core i5 in the new Envy 14? It certainly would fit nicely in the lineup.

No specs were actually listed on the support page. Mobile Core i5 CPUs are expected to make the scene in the first quarter of next year. So, watch for an Envy 14 announcement around then.

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Posted 10/30/09 at 09:46:29 AM by Paul Lilly

We've been talking a lot about Acer lately, and that's because Acer has been doing a lot of talking of its own. The OEM's been pounding its chest like Kevin Garnett after an 'and-one' and talking smack to Dell, HP, and anyone else who stands in its way. And now the OEM is saying it's fully prepared to take on HP in a bit of a pricing war, which comes just a day after Acer said it feels confident it will ship 40 million notebooks in 2010.

According to news and rumor site DigiTimes, HP has already kicked off some pretty fierce price competition in a few designated markets, which includes sub-$300 models in the U.S. Acer's ever talkative chairman JT Wang said his company will not only follow suit, but plans to one-up HP by aggressively marketing its netbook and ultra-thin segments, both of which are areas HP is a little weaker in.

Beyond 2010, Wang said the global netbook market is on track to reach 350 million units, and we're a bit surprised Acer didn't say it plans to capture 349 million of them.

Let the price wars begin.

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