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Dell hypes clusters and printers in Dublin


http://www.enn.ie/frontpage/news-9650699.html
Dell hypes clusters and printers in Dublin
Wednesday, October 26 2005
by Ciaran Buckley

Ireland is one of Dell's most advanced markets for the adoption of server clusters, a trend driven by green-field industrial sites and cost considerations.



This was one of the facts revealed at the Dublin stop of the Dell Technology & Solutions Tour, which took place in UCD on Wednesday. The tour stops off at around 20 locations in Europe every year.


This year the computer hardware giant provided demonstrations of its latest multi-core servers and printers. It also demonstrated the network management, storage and security products offered by its partners.


Irish customers have been particularly receptive to Dell's Intel-based server clusters, John Fruehe, head of enterprise systems group marketing at Dell, told ElectricNews.Net.


He attributed this to the number of green-field industrial sites that have developed in Ireland over the past ten years, which have no legacy mainframe or mid-range computer systems. Cluster servers -- which are also sold by Dell's competitors such as Hewlett-Packard and Sun Microsystems -- have been gaining market share from traditional mainframes and UNIX servers because they can run enterprise applications on low-cost hardware.


Dell has also enjoyed significant success in the public sector server market, particularly in the US. Fruehe said that the move to server clusters have helped to provide value for money to the US public sector. He said that public universities and research institutes have adopted cluster computing because low-cost servers are sufficiently powerful for high-end computing. He said that less tech-savvy government offices -- such as the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles -- are using clustered servers because they have a lower maintenance overhead than older server systems.


Dell was also promoting its imaging products, including its range of colour photo printers. John Kelly, Dell's imaging and printer manager for the UK, told ElectricNews.Net that although it is still cheaper to print photographs in a pharmacy or from a photo booth, the adoption of colour photo printers will be driven by convenience rather than by price.


Dell is also looking at ways to reduce the cost of its ink cartridges. Kelly said that the WEEE directive, which requires Dell to take back empty ink cartridges, will help to reduce the cost of printer ink. Kelly said that Dell already has a programme whereby it charges less for recycled laser printer cartridges, as part of a use-and-return programme.

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