AMD’s quad-core Opteron processor ‘Shanghai’ launched

The chip maker, AMD, has announced the launch of their latest processor code-named ‘Shanghai’ on Thursday.

The 45nm (nanometre) server processor’s improved performance and enhanced power efficiency would serve to re-establish AMD’s competitiveness.

Deviating from its past processor launches, AMD highlighted improved power consumption more than faster performance. Improvements include enhancement of raw performance from 2MB on 65nm processor to 6MB of L3 cache. The clock range has also been improved from 2.0GHz-2.54GHz to 2.3GHz-2.7GHz, while the power envelope has been maintained below 100W

According to General Manager Emilo Ghilardi, Shanghai was the best processor in terms of performance, power consumption and cost. He added that it was not just performance anymore but performance per watt per dollar.

Along with increasing emphasis on energy efficiency, the IT market was also placing emphasis on migration from less efficient old systems to more efficient newer systems. AMD organised a demonstration of live migration at the launch of Shanghai.

Lesilie Sobon, Vice President AMD Marketing, believes that customers expect faster and easier migration. He claimed that Shanghai was seamless and quick migration.

According to Sobon, power saving was 35% at idle and 15-20% when working. The company is confident of getting an edge over competitors’ superior virtualisation with better memory controller performance and quick switching between virtual machines.

Laptop overheating forces Sony to recall batteries

Sony batteries are once again are the cause of problem two years after their largest recall in the electronic industry.

Consumer Product Safety Commission and Sony are announcing a recall 100,000 of Sony’s 2.15Ah lithium-ion batteries used in laptops, 65,000 of which had been sold in international markets and 35,000 in the US.

Sony, which has sold more than 26 million batteries since 2002, reported that 2.15Ah lithium ion battery is different from 8 million batteries recalled in 2006. This recall is expected to be on a much smaller scale.

CPSC reported that the recall involved batteries used in 32,000 HP notebooks, 3,000 Toshiba and 150 Dell notebooks. Sony’s Vaio notebooks, which use a different battery, are not involved in recall.

PC manufacturers have reported 40 incidents of laptop overheating since June 2005 when Sony received first complaint about 2.15Ah batteries. Overheating caused smoke or flames in some cases leading to minor burns, while 20 incidents involved property damage to a smaller extent.

Sony is attributing problems to batteries produced during the October 2004 and June 2005 period. It has so far not received any complaint on batteries produced after 2006.

Dell, HP and Toshiba have set up websites for customers to lodge complaints and receive a free replacement by mail.

Dell to develop de-duplication technology

Dell will be entering into a partnership with Quantum and EMC to develop technology to simplify de-duplication.

The company is trying to develop technology to get own storage arrays covering EqualLogic and PowerVault and third-party arrays from EMC to work harmoniously together. Part of this will be derived from de-duplication specialist Quantum’s technology.

According to Dell, it was aiming to create a “single de-duplication architecture” for three different product groups and to deliver compatibility in de-duplication and replication of data, from branch offices or departments to the datacentre.

In order to manage data explosion caused by the increasing demand for web-based video and pictures and other rich media, de-duplication has become a must for many companies. This data could be stored in more than one place. De-duplication puts data in long-term storage like tape drives by removing surplus copies, when they become less essential.

Dell’s vice president of storage business, Darren Thomas, revealed that his company had plans to do de-dupe differently since storage had been very complicated and its simplification was over due. He further informed that Dell wanted to create single architecture which would be compatible both with its own as well as rivals’ portfolios.

Dell, in its statement, promised range of services to customers in assessing, designing and implementing de-duplication solutions.

Sony offers high specification Vaio laptops for business

Sony has launched the TT Series laptops for the businesses at premium price with very high specifications.

The base model of Vaio, 2GB memory laptop is CS1, at £1,599. The higher range model Z2 with 4GB memory costs £1,999.

Z2 laptop is also offered in another version which comes with full disk encryption and security at no additional cost.

The TT laptops carry Vaio trademarks, operate at low voltage and consume less power. Their slim carbon fibre structure makes them light weight, just 1.3kg. They come with LED-backlit screen and multi-standard DVD reader.

The battery life for typical use is 8 hours on full charge. One hour of charging is sufficient for 4 hours of usage. The Ultra Low Voltage Intel Core 2 Duo processor, used in the laptop enables low power use.

Laptops are provided with Motion Eye webcams and communication is made through 7.2Mbps HSDPA, 2Mbps HSUPA and Wi-Fi.

Nicolas Barendson, head of Sony’s Vaio business in Europe, disagreed with the view that TT series would be too expensive compared to other compact laptops in the present economic crunch.

Barendson claimed that Sony differentiated itself with technology, security, mobility and reliability. People opt for Vaio for the features it offers for the business needs.

Acer topples HP in the EMEA region

Acer’s success in the growing netbook market has helped it in toppling HP from the top position in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) PC selling league.

Although HP still topped the spot in global stakes, Acer climbed up from second position in the EMEA region as per Gartner’s third quarter preliminary results of this year. Globally Dell is placed at second place while Acer remained at third position.

The report attributed HP’s top position loss in EMEA to its delayed entry in the mini-notebook market. According to the Gartner report Asus and Acer benefited significantly from sales of low-cost subnotebooks or netbooks.

According to principal analyst Ranjit Atwal for client computing markets, EMEA PC market was dictated by manufacturers that supplied mini-notebooks, lending them opportunity to climb up in top five rankings. He added that HP feared potential loss of existing notebook markets and delayed introduction of mini-notebooks without realising that Acer would grab the opportunity so quickly.

Atwal pointed out that large volumes of netbooks were shipped to Western Europe’s telecommunications operators.

It was first time since its merger with Compaq in 2002 that HP lost its top position in EMEA PC sales in the third quarter of this year.

Dell introduces disk-to-disk system to speed up data processes

Dell has come out with a disk-to-disk system which houses recovery and backup with the main data storage in one unit for speeding up data processes.

The Dell Power Vault DL2000 system, by housing both data capabilities in a single unit, can reduce backup time and recovery time up to 52% and 77% respectively when compared with tape, claimed Dell in its statement on Wednesday. The claims were made on the basis of information gathered from CommVault, the data storage specialist which provides integrated software for the system.

Housing two capabilities in one unit eliminates cables which normally link backup with the main system and cut back the time significantly spent in replicating and restoring data. Targeted for small and to medium-sized industry, the system provides 144TB of disk space.

The PowerVault DL2000 is new addition to TierDisk range of Dell products which offer tiered storage. An external Dell DL2000 tape library could be added on by the companies to backup disk for rapid restoration of data stored on tape, while still retaining security of tape to recover from offsite disaster.

The PowerVault DL2000 is factory-installed and rechecked either with the help of Symantec Backup Exec software or CommVault Simpana, as reported by Dell.

Price for the solutions would be announced later in October.

PC market unlikely to change with new versions of portable devices, says Michael Dell

A number of ultraportable devices being introduced by different hardware vendors including Dell were not likely to change shape of the PC market, according to Michael Dell.

Answering to a query on the netbook phenomenon, Dell himself was not convinced with the form factor. He argued that 85% of portable computers with advanced operating systems were in use in 14-15 inch screen size and it was difficult to predict how widespread the use of 8 to 10-inch size screen devices would be.

Michael recalled that Dell introduced a product in that range but believed those netbooks might not prove to be a massive growth factor in the market.

Michael, the founder and chief executive of Dell, was planning company’s push into services by launching an expanded managed service in London including helpdesk support for the customers.

Michael informed that Dell’s services business accounted for £3.8bn. According to him companies spent $2 to $3 on support and infrastructure services for every dollar spent on PCs. He explained that by selling 90,000 machines to an Australian mining company, Dell could get opportunity to target that $2 to$3 and take over its system management.

Michael clarified that Dell would prefer smaller acquisitions and would not go for really big acquisition like EDS by DP.

Nokia to popularise Symbian devices in emerging markets

Nokia has launched its developer programme, Forum Nokia, for its Symbian mobile operating system to help harvest new applications.

Nokia is aiming to increase its handset sales by popularising OS through the “Calling All Innovators Contest”, particularly in emerging markets, according to the Forum Nokia executive. One of the three competitions is designed to encourage application development.

Forum Nokia’s vice president, Tom Libretto, in an interview stated that developers, the majority of whom belonged to advanced nations, did not focus on applications for emerging markets. He explained that proposed competition was being organised to make developers ponder over the needs of those markets, adding that developer ecosystem could help by delivering weather information or real time market updates by inexpensive means like SMS.

Libretto cited example of an Indian farmer who could be assisted in getting advanced information on prices of wares at different places instead of making long trips everyday to various markets. He claimed that such applications would popularise Symbian devices in emerging markets while driving their sales as well.

According to Libretto, the competition would also help other handset vendors to boost their sales, while Nokia would try to differentiate its handsets from others in price and form.

The other two competitions included applications for reduction of environmental impact and advanced utilisation of phone technology.

The first, second and third place winners in each category of the competition carry prize of £14,000 and a trip to mobile World Congress next year, £10,000 and £5,000 respectively.

OLPC terms response of some commercial laptop makers to its project as unfortunate

The One Laptop per Child Organisation (OLPC), which launched its super low-cost laptop for developing world’s school children some years ago on its own market, is now facing vicious competition from commercial laptop makers hungry for growth.

The chief learning architect for the not-for-profit organisation OLPC, David Cavallo, was however upbeat about the new makers in the educational laptop market which was kick started by his organisation. He was delivering a keynote address at the annual conference of the Association for Learning Technology.

Cavallo described the entry of the new makers as huge success for OLPC since it was not working for profit and was not meant to be a laptop company. The organisation was on mission of providing education for the most marginalised, and One Laptop per Child was a humanitarian project. It was great to see that lot of companies were now making devices since there were still more than a billion children in the world who needed help.

He was however disappointed with the response of some commercial laptop makers to OLPC project and termed it as unfortunate. He was surprised that those companies had taken this as market for competition, and started competing in a vicious way. OLPC was interested neither in capturing market share nor in profit making or knocking anybody out. He declared that OLPC project would continue pushing hardware costs down to make it affordable for many.

Samsung announces plan for ‘antibacterial’ netbook

The Korean manufacturer Samsung intends to enter the crowded netbook market for launch of its low-cost subnotebook, NC10. It made announcement of its plan on Friday, September 19.

The netbook would feature 10.2-inch no-gloss LED screen with 1,024×600- pixel resolution. With the provision of a six-cell battery, the 1.33 kg. netbook can run for almost 8 hours of usage on a single charge, as claimed by Samsung.

The other specifications included Bluetooth 2.0+EDR wireless connectivity, 802.11b/g WiFi, three-in-one memory card, USB ports, VGA connections and integrated webcam. It also uses Windows XP and Atom processor of Intel.

The netbook is designed with some unusual features such as ‘full size’ keyboard which is slightly larger than normal laptop keyboards, and ‘ultra-durable Protest-o-Edge casing’. The keyboard is coated with silver ion powder, which Samsung claimed made breeding and survival of bacteria on the keys impossible. This feature is specifically highlighted by Samsung insisting that that users working continuously on netbook were protected from hazards of bacteria which normally bred on keyboards.

The Samsung NC10 netbook is slated for sale in October. It would be priced up to £329 excluding VAT, depending on type of configuration.

MSI Wind and Asus’s Eee 1000 are the other competitions’ netbooks in the market with the same screen size.

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