Many products with digital parts are sold with “strings” designed to lock buyers into high-margin post-purchase contracts for such things as “Support”, “Maintenance”, and “Upgrades”.  Some contracts are so intertwined into the purchase that buyers are forced to replace fully functional equipment on a schedule dictated by the manufacturer.

Microsoft’s announcement of their Surface tablet on Monday has sent a buzz through enterprise IT departments.  Those who have been eagerly awaiting a Microsoft-compatible tablet for business uses now have a solid solution in sight.  This imaginative and intelligently designed device may be the most innovative PC the world has ever seen.

It’s always interesting to track worldwide server shipments and revenue. According to Gartner, shipments grew 7.2% year-over-year and revenue from server shipments grew 5.2%.

Thailand’s worst flooding in at least five decades has claimed 564 lives since July. While most of Bangkok’s central business district remains dry, manufacturers who supply parts to Seagate and other Thai computer disk drive and parts manufacturers are having difficulty and the flooding is causing shipping delays.

Dell said that his company does not plan to spin out its consumer sector, like HP did this year and sees helping customers manage end-to-end solutions for its endusers is become especially more imporantant as employees bring client devices (i.e. tablets, mobile phones, laptops, etc.) to work.

On 10.1.2011 The Service Industry Association (SIA) released a grading system that allows IT end-users to use as a guide when considering how to approach onsite software and hardware maintenance as well as hardware break-fix on their IT equipment.

Top 10 best practices for HPC Data Center Relocations

There are many reasons that a company or institution might need to move a large computer system.  New equipment might necessitate the currently installed systems being relocated within the same data center to provide space.  Leases expire, facilities close, corporate headquarters move, grants end, and new data centers are built making it either necessary or desirable to move a system or a data center to a new location.  Whatever the reason, moving a large HPC installation is a massive undertaking that can fall anywhere between a nightmarish disaster to a relatively painless process.