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Re:"Looks like close to a 300M loss for AMD this Q."
The operating loss is probably about $400 million. The $100 million revenue drop to $500 million from $600 million will drop a;most entirely to the operating loss line.
ViewSonic joins Pocket PC ranks
By Richard Shim
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
September 29, 2002, 9:00 PM PT
http://news.com.com/2100-1040-960004.html
ViewSonic will join the growing number of handheld licensees of Microsoft's Pocket PC 2002 operating system.
Microsoft will announce on Monday that Walnut, Calif.-based ViewSonic will become the 29th licensee of its handheld operating system. ViewSonic will offer a $299 device, the V35 Pocket PC, starting Nov. 1.
The 4.9-ounce device will come with a 300MHz Intel XScale PXA250 processor, 32MB of memory, a 3.5-inch transflective color screen and a Secure Digital expansion slot. The V35 will also come with Microsoft PowerPoint file viewer and digital imager viewer applications.
Vhin Dam left Intel after leading the Pentium processor design team and went directly to NexGen to lead their clone processor design team. He joined AMD when NexGen was acquired by AMD.
There was no law suit or difficulty when Dham joined NexGen.
RE:"I'm talking about the significant amounts of confidential information in his head and it would be too risky for Intel to hire him."
Note that Dirk Meyer worked on the Alpha Processor at DEC and later joined AMD where he worked on the K7. There was no difficulty in that situation.
California has rules that go a long way toward protecting the right of an employee in using his or her professional skills. Intel has no product that would compete with a Hammer chipset so the confidential information from AMD would not be useful or sued in an Intel product.
The chances of a successful law suit by AMD are pretty low.
The Intergraph and Intel dispute has a peculiar twist. Intel already has a License under the patents asserted by Intergraph in the Texas law suit, currently sitting before the Judge and waiting for a decision after a trial. The only question is how much Intel will pay.
If Intel ultimately prevails in the Texas lawsuit then they pay nothing. If Intergraph wins at trial and Intel does not appeal, Intel pays $150 million. If Intel appeals and loses, it pays Intergraph $100 million more for a total of $250 million.
The payment terms were disclosed in the public announcment of the settlement.
You don't seem to understand. You have earned an ignore with your misconduct.
Your loss, semi's gain.
Itanium Rising: Breaking Through Moore's Second Law of Computing Power
http://vig.prenhall.com/catalog/academic/product/1,4096,0130464155,00.html?type=DES
By Jim Carlson, Jerry Huck
Description
This book covers the development and application of Itanium. It describes why the revolutionary leap forward in processing power can help CEO's achieve their company's vision. It also discusses the implication of these changes to a company's IT infrastructure. The book touches on issues involving how to move away from the desktop model of computing into implementing a system that best makes use of the IPF. The final section of the book discusses the future of the IPF and the technological changes resulting from it.
About the Author(s)
JIM CARLSON, Director of Marketing for Hewlett-Packard Company's Intel Processor Family (IPF)-based systems, is responsible for coordinating and directing Itanium-related marketing activities and product strategies across HP's Computer Systems organization. He also directs plans for helping resellers, ISVs, and users transition to Itanium systems.
JERRY HUCK led architectural work on the Itanium processor family specification as Chief Architect for HP's Application Development Operation, Software & Solutions Organization, Computing Systems. He is now focused on making HP-UX the Itanium's application platform of choice.
Companies take off the gloves over IP patents
By Spencer Chin, EBN
Sep 24, 2002 (9:51 AM)
URL: http://www.ebnews.com/story/OEG20020924S0045
The global electronics industry has become a legal battleground as more and more suppliers patent their intellectual property and sue one another over alleged infringements.
Disputes between semiconductor makers and semiconductor IP houses -- for example, between Infineon Technologies A.G. and Micron Technology Inc. and IP design firm Rambus Inc. -- and a recent upsurge of patent activity by Asian flat-panel-display suppliers underscore the industry's reliance on patents to generate royalty revenue and ward off stiffening competition from lower-cost vendors.
But by forcing rivals to pay royalties as well as worry about lawsuits, patent-laden suppliers also restrict OEMs' choices by suppressing competition and enabling them in some instances to keep prices abnormally high.
“In every aspect, patents are becoming more important,” said Peter Eng, a senior associate at law firm Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, Palo Alto, Calif. “If suppliers can't get rid of competitors,” they sue them for patent infringement, he said.
“We've had an embarrassment of riches in patent litigation,” said Bill Anthony, an attorney at Orrick, Herrington, Sutcliffe LLP, Menlo Park, Calif. “And it's getting typical to see companies establish departments to mine patent portfolios.”
Patent cases often drag on for months or even years, costing companies millions of dollars and tying up personnel in court. Still, suppliers-or at least those with deep pockets-are willing to pay the price, according to Wilson Sonsini's Eng.
“Look at the results. If you win, you prevent someone from selling your product,” he said.
Some industry observers say large suppliers are patenting products even with short lifecycles, keeping smaller vendors out of the market long enough to profit from charging OEMs higher prices.
EBN's staff economist, Jim Haughey, said many disputes between chipmakers, like those between Intel Corp. and Taiwan's Via Technologies Inc., involve products that could be made obsolete within months by new technology.
“It's very profitable for Intel to delay Via's production for a few months or scare off big buyers from buying from Via,” Haughey said.
Intel declined to comment.
Eng agreed that some suppliers use their patent strategy to corner a market and charge higher prices.
“There's no doubt customers pick up part of the patent cost. When suppliers come up with a next-generation product, they charge a premium until someone else comes up with a better solution.”
Different opinion
But Joel Pollack, vice president of the Displays Business Unit at Sharp Microelectronics of the Americas Inc., Camas, Wash., denies that patent costs affect product pricing.
“All costs associated with developing and introducing a product are associated with the cost of the product itself and nothing else. Pricing, on the other hand, is determined by market value,” Pollack said.
Patent controversies are likely to rage on because each year more patents are being issued than in previous years.
In the United States in 2001, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in Washington issued 57,126 patents classified as electrical technology and including electronics, up from 53,164 in 2000 and almost double the number of patents in 1995, when 29,855 were issued.
Attorneys believe the high number of patents granted stems partially from an overworked U.S. Patent and Trademark Office that is not always able to discern what is and what is not patentable.
“Too many patents are being issued on things that shouldn't be patented,” said Orrick, Herrington's Anthony. “The burden is on the patent office examiners.”
Brigid Quinn, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, said the agency is hoping to hire 750 additional examiners in 2003. But she defended the staff's ability. “The people examining patent applications have the same education and experience as those designing electronic equipment,” she said.
Suppliers pleased
While conceding that the patent system is not perfect, suppliers say it gives them the freedom they need to develop and sell products in various markets.
“We think the patent office is doing a pretty decent job,” said Fred Telecky, general patent counsel and senior vice president at Texas Instruments Inc., Dallas.
And the decision to develop and defend a patent isn't taken lightly, insisted Lou Hecht, corporate secretary and general counsel at Lisle, Ill., connector supplier, Molex Inc.
“It costs a lot of money to acquire and maintain a patent portfolio,” Hecht said.
While declining to comment on Molex's patent strategy, Hecht said he didn't see any clear indication of increased patent activity in the connector industry. “Some companies have increased patent activity, some have decreased, while others have remained flat,” he said.
Display patent wars
One industry certainly experiencing increased patent activity is displays, where Japanese and Korean LCD makers are arming themselves against stiff competition from Taiwan.
Earlier this month, Korea's LG.Philips LCD Co. Ltd. filed a lawsuit against Chungwha Picture Tubes Ltd. in the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, alleging the Taiwanese supplier infringed on six of it U.S. patents related to thin-film-transistor technology.
Chungwha was also sued in January by Japan's Sharp Corp. over alleged patent infringement.
Japanese newswire services reported last month that Sharp and Seiko Epson Corp. were adding patent staff, while Hitachi Ltd. said it would file more patent applications in Korea and Taiwan.
Semiconductor suppliers, too, are relying more on patents as their products become increasingly complex and proprietary.
International Rectifier Corp., El Segundo, Calif., now derives half of its revenue from proprietary products such as advanced circuit devices and power systems, and considers patents a means of helping to implement its strategy, according to Robert Grant, executive vice president of global sales and corporate marketing.
International Rectifier is currently engaged in litigation with IXYS Corp., Santa Clara, Calif., over alleged infringement of several IXYS patents related to power module designs.
Likewise, TI, which derives 5% of its revenue from patent royalties, expects patents to gain importance as chip complexity increases.
“We're talking about using a single chip in a cell phone within two to three years, integrating more functions,” Telecky said. “Parts will get faster and geometries will become smaller. There will be more things to protect [through patents].”
Press Release Source: SWsoft, Inc.
SWsoft Releases Virtuozzo 2.5, Highest-Performing Server Virtualization Technology for Intel Xeon Processor-Based Servers
"Performance enhancements: 64GB of memory and 16 CPUs per VE, new support for Intel Hyper-Threading Technology "
Tuesday September 24, 8:40 am ET
S. SAN FRANCISCO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 24, 2002--SWsoft, Inc.
-0-
-- Recent Testing Results on IBM, Dell Hardware Show Server
Virtualization Software Increased Performance with Intel(R)
Hyper-Threading Technology, Supported 2,500 Instances of Linux
on x86 Architecture
SWsoft, Inc., leader in hosting automation and enterprise server software (www.sw-soft.com), today announced the general availability of Virtuozzo(TM) 2.5, shown in a comprehensive series of tests to be the most powerful server virtualization software for Intel Xeon(TM) processor-based servers. Used for enterprise server consolidation, software development systems, high-security and high availability environments and as the backbone of the HSPcomplete(TM) hosting automation solution, Virtuozzo 2.5 is proven to have the highest scalability of any x86 server virtualization solution available, up to 64GB RAM and 16 CPUs per Virtual Environment (virtual partition functionally identical to a standalone server) and support for the Intel Hyper-Threading Technology.
During stress-testing 24/7 on IBM and Dell hardware, Virtuozzo exploited the full potential of Intel Xeon processor-based servers, running 2,500 Virtual Environments (VEs) on a single server, making it the most efficient technology in its class.
"The Virtuozzo 2.5 technology running on Intel Xeon processor-based systems allows SWsoft's customers to cost effectively host and manage large networked environments," said Melissa Laird, director of Intel Developer Services. "We are pleased that SWsoft participated in Intel's Early Access Program to optimize their Virtuozzo software."
"We designed Virtuozzo to fully utilize all resources of large Intel Xeon processor-based servers," said Serguei Beloussov, CEO, SWsoft. "Other server virtualization technologies squeeze applications into a single CPU (instead of 16 CPUs for Virtuozzo) and under 4GB of memory (instead of 64GB for Virtuozzo), which compromises system performance."
High-performance Virtuozzo is used by hosting providers to power Virtual Private Servers (VPS) hosting plans, which increase revenue per customer and per server. "Virtuozzo allows me to support more customers on one server, without sacrificing performance and/or revenues generated per customer," said Jacky Yung, CEO, OnSmart Network. "With test results of 2,500 VPS per physical server, I'm comfortable putting hundreds of high-load VPS on my IBM xSeries servers."
Used with hosting providers (HSPs) for years as the core technology behind the HSPcomplete solution, Virtuozzo 2.5 has been vastly improved as a standalone product. "VZMC, Virtuozzo's multiplatform graphical management console, comes with hundreds of new features," added Craig Oda, VP, business development, SWsoft. "Virtuozzo is now a complete product, fully usable for both providers and enterprises."
New features of VZMC include firewall management support, GUI for mass provisioning of applications and operating systems, and graphical performance monitoring of each partition/virtual environment.
New features of Virtuozzo include:
Improved `smart migration' of VEs (drag and drop) between physical servers with only a few seconds of planned system downtime. Large VEs can now be moved as quickly as small VEs.
OS template support for Linux (Red Hat 7.1, 7.2, 7.3, SuSE, Debian), FreeBSD
Performance enhancements: 64GB of memory and 16 CPUs per VE, new support for Intel Hyper-Threading Technology
2-level disk quotas - Can manage disk quotas for each VE and setup quotas per user inside a VE
Improved journaling filesystem support (ext3 and ReiserFS) in addition to ext2
VzAgent - open and well documented XML-based API
Virtuozzo 2.5 for Hosting Providers
With over 10,000 VPSs in production, Virtuozzo is establishing itself as an industry leader. According to Joshua Beil, VP, Research and Development for analyst firm Tier 1 Research, "Virtuozzo allows enterprises and hosting providers to automate administrative processes at an attractive price point, thereby reducing the TCO of managing server groups. Server virtualization is playing an increasingly important role within the mass market of hosting."
"Virtuozzo is the backbone of my business," said Joe Shiekron, CEO, Eryxma Networks (http://www.eryxma.com). "Virtuozzo 2.5 provides even more power to my existing hardware, enabling me to make even more money per customer and per server. Virtuozzo supports shared, virtual private server and dedicated hosting, allowing me to charge $60 per VPS with three times as many customers on a server."
Virtuozzo 2.5 now includes extended support for multiple OS templates on the same physical machine. The following templates ship pre-configured with Virtuozzo 2.5: Red Hat 7.3, 7.2, 7.1, SuSE 8.0, Debian, and FreeBSD. "Additional OS support allows me to broaden my audience and increase revenue, at the same time," says Tracy Phillips, president, Weberz hosting (www.weberz.com).
SWsoft tested third-party hosting applications like Plesk(TM), C-Panel(TM), Sphera(TM), H-Sphere(TM), and Confixx(TM) running inside a Virtuozzo-based VPS.
Virtuozzo 2.5 for Datacenters in Large Organizations
Stanford University uses Virtuozzo within the Electrical Engineering department network at the Gates Computer Science Building for new systems testing and overall service consolidation on secure servers. Virtuozzo allows Stanford to build a single server on Intel hardware that can run numerous virtual environments. Each VE can be created from templates and managed by faculty, staff, and students as their own system with root access, carte blanc access to any package, software, and based on any template of their choosing. Thus, all public accessible services such as web, ftp, and mail, can be maintained uniquely, but from a common base. The ease of mass updates aids in increasing security, by easily keeping all operating systems up to date.
"After evaluating different server virtualization and consolidation technologies, I chose Virtuozzo because it offered the best solution combining security, manageability, performance, and overall scalability," added Joe Little, computing information systems analyst, Stanford University. "The combination of reducing public exposure of services, limiting workstations to clients on the private network, and granting remote access to all systems make this a sound approach to increasing the over all security of our network."
VPS Enrollment Program -- Increase revenue per-server and per-customer
Mainframe-like technology on Intel-based servers is now available to any business, regardless of budget. SWsoft's VPS Enrollment Program enables businesses to get started with 2 Virtuozzo servers, each capable of supporting 50-1,000 VEs and VZMC for $3,000.
Under the promotion, SWsoft's HSPcomplete full business lifecycle hosting automation solution is available in an entry configuration for $5,000.
For more information on the promotion, please visit (http://www.sw-soft.com/vpspromo), contact info@sw-soft.com or call 650/875-7185 to see a demo of HSPcomplete.
About SWsoft
www.sw-soft.com
SWsoft is a leader in hosting automation and enterprise server software (www.sw-soft.com). Since 1999, the company has focused on the development of its patent-pending Virtuozzo(TM) technology and the HSPcomplete full business lifecycle hosting automation solution. The only end-to-end solutions and services for hosting service providers, e.g. Internet data centers, application service providers, managed hosting providers, SWsoft's products deliver powerful, comprehensive solutions that power data center management, accelerate business and infrastructure operations and provide excellent return on investment.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Contact:
SWsoft, Inc.
Alex Plant, 650/875-7185 ext. 123
aplant@sw-soft.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: SWsoft, Inc.
Re:"I shared it with Mani's old board, just to help them fine-tune their reality-distortion field generators."
Woops, so did I without realizing that you had posted.
Lab to sample Linux for weapons work
"The new system, called the "Science Appliance" and built by Salt Lake City-based Linux NetworX, uses a cluster of 1,024 interconnected servers, each with two 2.4GHz Intel Xeon processors. It's a close relative to another cluster at LANL's sister laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. "
By Stephen Shankland
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
September 23, 2002, 4:50 PM PT
http://news.com.com/2100-1001-959082.html
Los Alamos National Laboratory is buying a $6 million, 2,048-processor Linux supercomputer to run its nuclear weapons simulation software, an effort that will test the limits of these less expensive megamachines.
The lab has been a pioneer in building inexpensive supercomputers made out of ordinary computing components and the Linux operating system. Thus far, however, LANL's nuclear weapons simulation software runs on more expensive systems from SGI and Hewlett-Packard such as HP's $215 million "Q" now under construction.
A $6 million price tag may sound like a bargain in comparison, but software must be reworked to run using less expensive clusters of Linux machines. Though the new system will run unclassified programs such as predicting the properties of new materials, those tests will serve as a proxy to predict how well nuclear weapons simulation software works, said lab spokesman Jim Danneskiold.
The lab's central mission is ensuring that U.S. nuclear weapons will work as planned, despite aging and the current ban on actual nuclear tests. LANL has software that simulates the physical effects such as the extreme pressure and intense X-rays that accompany nuclear explosions.
Intel-based supercomputers are becoming less exotic, having escaped academia and found buyers in the private sector such as Companie General de Geophysique for oil and gas exploration work and MTU Aero Engine for engine design.
The new system, called the "Science Appliance" and built by Salt Lake City-based Linux NetworX, uses a cluster of 1,024 interconnected servers, each with two 2.4GHz Intel Xeon processors. It's a close relative to another cluster at LANL's sister laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
The Science Appliance, due by the end of the year, will be capable of a peak computational speed of 10 trillion calculations per second, Linux NetworX said. The computing nodes will be stacked 50 to a rack, with 27 racks taking up a patch of floor space about 18 by 25 feet. The nodes are connected with a high-speed switch from Myricom.
There are future expansion options in the LANL deal, said Clark Roundy, vice president of marketing at Linux NetworX.
There's a major difference compared with Livermore system, though: The Los Alamos machine has no hard drives. Instead, each computer fires up using software pulled over the network with the assistance of software called LinuxBIOS developed by LANL programmer Ron Minnich and others. LinuxBIOS also dramatically speeds the startup process to about two seconds, said Jason Lowry, Linux NetworX's product manager for cluster management tools.
Shunning hard drives cuts cost and power consumption, but more importantly, it improves reliability, Roundy said.
"If you think about what things are going to fail in a system, it's the hard disk or fan or power supply or something with moving parts," Roundy said.
Linux NetworX could benefit greatly from convincing the Los Alamos and Livermore labs that Linux clusters are worthwhile. The labs are funded by the Energy Department's Advanced Simulation and Computing program, which has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to advance supercomputing using machines made of comparatively inexpensive components.
The DOE program has underwritten many of the world's fastest computers, according to university researchers who monitor raw calculation speed at the Top500 organization. The program has underwritten Nos. 2, 6, 7, 9, 11, and 15 on the most recent ranking.
Start-up brings "blades" to the desktop
"A cable, cloaked in security protocols, connects the C/Port to the user's Pentium 4 computer in the back room. 112 computers can be squeezed onto a six-foot rack."
By Michael Kanellos
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
September 20, 2002, 12:42 PM PT
http://news.com.com/2100-1001-958819.html
Twenty-one years ago, the computer left the "glass house" for the desktop. Now a start-up appropriately named ClearCube wants to send it back.
The Austin, Texas-based company is trying to popularize a new vision for office computing where users would still have monitors, mice and keyboards on their desks, but their superthin computers would be neatly stacked in centralized computer rooms--the descendents of yesteryear's so-called glass houses.
The contemporary twist involves "blade"-style design, in which thin devices are stacked vertically in racks like books or record albums. Although the blade concept has taken the server and storage markets by storm, ClearCube's effort would be the first major attempt to bring the idea to desktop workstations.
"It's sort of like thin clients, but it's running all the same software as regular desktops," said Roger Kay, an analyst at market research firm IDC. "They've got some of the biggies sniffing around looking at them."
Thin client workstations aren't independent computers--the hard drives, personal data and applications are all stored on servers, and if the servers go down, the desktops become paperweights. Hence thin clients have never taken off. But blade workstations would be full-fledged PCs.
ClearCube said several large companies are considering licensing or reselling elements of its technology. "We are in discussion with large OEMs," said Raj Shah, the company's chief marketing officer. Although Shah declined to name names, Hewlett-Packard has most frequently been mentioned as a potential ally. Acquisition rumors have floated around as well. Investors include Acer, and Sternhill Partners, a venture firm that counts former chief Compaq Computer strategist Robert Stearns among its number.
Like the blade server, a blade workstation of the type ClearCube envisions has the potential to drastically cut the costs associated with maintenance. The machines can be kept in a small space, letting administrators do more work without having to leave their office and roam. That means more efficient administrators, and thus, possibly, a smaller administrative staff.
"It is much easier for me to support racked PCs," said Capt. Timothy Ohrenberger of the U.S. Air Force. "The waiting time for customer-support work orders is about 50 percent lower."
Ohrenberger oversaw a pilot program involving 44 ClearCube blades run by the medical services unit of Hill Air Force Base in Utah. He found that computer downtime dropped by 95 percent and IT staff time per PC fell 83 percent.
ClearCube says that blade desktops also improve security and overall system utilization. Even the costs associated with shuffling an employee from one desk to another are cut, because no equipment actually gets moved. In a downtown high-rise, that can mean a lot.
"These are union buildings," said ClearCube CEO Mike Frost. "You can't just up and move a box. It can cost $1,000 or more."
Despite the potential advantages of ClearCube's approach, though, the fact remains that start-ups get crushed on a regular basis in the hardware world. The company claims, however, that its patents provide some insulation from a sudden onslaught by the likes of Dell or IBM.
One business-process patent, for instance, applies to a method for managing PCs in a central rack, said Shah. Others apply to security protocols for protecting data in transit.
Privately held ClearCube won't reveal its revenue or most of its customers but said that both sales and customer test programs are growing.
Morgan Stanley, and The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) headquarters in Cheyenne Mountain, Wyo., are both experimenting with ClearCube's workstations. And a large financial services company is deploying test systems in New York, Hong Kong and London, ClearCube said. The report from Hill Air Force Base has been submitted to the Air Force Medical Support Agency, the purchasing arm for the medical unit, which will determine whether these systems can be purchased on a nationwide basis.
Latitude to longitude
Since the beginning of 2001, "blades" has been one of the major buzzwords of the computing world. Unlike regular computers, blades come with no external case. Instead, they are naked circuit boards containing processors, memory, input-output components, and, more often than not, independent hard drives.
Rather than sit on a desk or remain stacked horizontally in a rack, blades slide vertically into a specialized rack that contains all the wiring necessary to hook the computers into the network.
The architectural change brings a host of benefits, according to analysts and computer executives. The physical real estate required for computers gets greatly reduced. Computers can also be more efficiently used: an administrator can deploy a batch of blades to handle e-mail in the morning and then convert them to Web servers later. Management software and physical proximity make this possible.
Although nearly everyone has adopted the blade ethos for servers or storage systems--which are already generally kept in centralized computer rooms--some of the benefits apply to the desktop.
For one thing, desktop blades reduce walking-around time. On their desks, users get a monitor, keyboard, mouse and a C/Port, a phone-sized input-output unit for connecting the stuff together. A cable, cloaked in security protocols, connects the C/Port to the user's Pentium 4 computer in the back room. 112 computers can be squeezed onto a six-foot rack.
In the Hill trial, for example, the time required to load software dropped from 9 minutes to 3.5 minutes. With conventional desktops, each PC has to be unboxed, then taken to a computer room, then connected to an imaging station, then taken down for final testing and deployment.
In the rack, after the first software image was loaded, it could be replicated across all other desktops, said the Air Force's Ohrenberger.
Additionally, blade desktops can bring some perks that aren't practical on standard desktops. ClearCube's racks typically contain one or two spare blades. If someone's PC dies, an administrator can swap the affected employee to a spare blade.
Potentially, this could make the technology popular for retail brokerages "where you have hundreds or even thousands of desktops," said Jerry Silva, senior analyst at the Tower Group, which studies the impact of IT on the financial-services market. While exact savings are difficult to quantify, increased computer reliability does cut costs, he added.
But what about the data?
The software-management package that comes with ClearCube's blades includes an application that backs up data from one individual drive to two or three others in the same rack.
"There's tons of extra disk space everywhere," said ClearCube's Shah, who noted that very few people use up the full 20GB to 30GBs found in drives today. Secure partitions prevent employees from accessing any backup data their PC happens to host.
Blading also permits a form of mobile computing. Since the drive and other computing elements are located in a central location, users can log in to the network at any available keyboard and connect to their "desktop," said Shah. The Oklahoma Heart Hospital, among others, has experimented with putting log-in terminals in patient rooms that can be accessed by doctors or nurses with smart cards.
Bladed desktops do create security problems, but the company says it has resolved most of these and pushed forward to a point where security actually improves. The ports on the desktop can be blocked. Users, therefore, can't plug unknown, and potentially infected, devices onto the network.
"What's available to the outside world, essentially, is a jack" to connect to the network, said Kay.
The cable connecting the desktop unit and the blade rack can run for 200 meters, or about twice as long as what's required in the vast majority of office buildings. A secure fiber connection that will let the connection go to two kilometers is in the works, Shah said.
A security wrapper prevents data from being sniffed on the connection cable, and the blades are stacked so close together that Ethernet signals would be difficult to separate.
With these factors in mind, the company is targeting several markets: military and government offices (where security concerns are paramount), health care (for remote computing) and financial and manufacturing companies (where space is paramount).
Nothing's ever perfect, however. Squeezing hundreds of Pentium 4 desktops into a centralized rack requires companies to find space in computing rooms and equip the rooms with adequate cooling and noise baffling.
The requisite cooling fans "do make a lot of noise, but it is in the data center," Shah said.
The hardware's also not cheap, leading to a equipment bill that can be 50 percent to 60 percent more expensive, after the specialized racks and other equipment is added together. "They are considerably more expensive," said Ohrenberger.
Nonetheless, Ohrenberger added, "the total cost of ownership bears it out that in the long run it is better."