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Server 2008 Support Ends In 2015
Microsoft has extended support for Windows Server 2008 until 15 January 2015.
Microsoft’s Windows Server 2008 operating system had been earmarked to enter the firm’s extended support phase on 9 July 2013, however the firm has moved that date back by 18 months. The firm said that it will keep Windows Server 2008 in the mainstream support phase until 15 January 2015.
Microsoft generally provides a decade of support for its high profile operating systems and software applications. The company said, “Microsoft policy provides a minimum of five years of Mainstream Support or two years of Mainstream Support after the successor product ships, whichever is longer.”
Of course Microsoft likes its customers to buy newer, shiner versions of its software whenever the firm releases it, but server operating systems customers are resistant to change in order to avoid any possible disruption in service availability. The company is desperately trying to get customers to migrate from Windows XP to Windows 7 and Windows 8, even though it extended support for the operating system until 8 APril 2014.
I.T. Spending On The Rise
Worldwide IT spending remains on track to increase by 6% in 2012 despite the grim economic conditions in Europe, thanks to strong software, storage, smartphone and tablet sales, according to IDC.
While 2012 has been a tough year for many IT vendors, they have done better overall than many expected in the first half of the year, IDC said.
For example, software spending has been robust, even in parts of the world where the economy has been weakest, as businesses hope software tools and applications will help them implement cost-reduction strategies.
The 6% growth compares to a 7% increase in worldwide IT spending last year. IDC expects 6% growth in 2013.
Software, storage, enterprise network and mobile device markets have offset weaker sales in servers, peripherals and PCs. However, the launch of Windows 8 during the fourth quarter should help the PC market recover next year, IDC said.
U.S. IT spending will grow by 5.9% in 2012, compared to 8.5% last year. However, the strength of the dollar during the first six months of the year means that IT spending in dollar terms will grow just 4% for the full year.
Intel Partners With WMware
Intel has teamed up with Microsoft’s rival VMware to deliver a platform for “trusted cloud.”
The technology will mix Intel’s Trusted Execution Technology (TXT) and VMware’s vSphere 5.1, platform for building cloud infrastructures. Intel said its hardware-enhanced security capabilities integrated directly into the processor combined with vSphere 5.1 would provide a hardened and high-integrity platform to run business-critical applications in private and public cloud environments.
Intel thinks that the biggest barrier to cloud adoption is the fact that companies are worried about security. Jason Waxman, general manager of Intel’s Cloud Infrastructure Group, in a statement that Intel TXT provides hardware enforcement to help overcome some of the most challenging aspects of cloud security, including detection and prevention of bios attacks and evolving forms of stealthy malware, such as rootkits.
Microsoft Silent On Windows 8 Pricing
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With just two months remaining before the retail launch of Windows 8, Microsoft has yet to provide pricing on its new OS.
Analysts today blamed Microsoft’s attempt to accommodate both desktops and tablets with Windows 8 for the lack of information.
“The delay in releasing pricing is all about uncertainty around the PC market and competition from Apple,” argued Patrick Moorhead, principal analyst with Moor Insights & Strategy. “Microsoft needs to price Windows in a way that looks smart versus Apple’s OS X, doesn’t leave money on the table with commercial PC customers, and enables OEMs to compete better with the iPad.”
The delay in pricing Windows 8 is real: During the Windows Vista and Windows 7 cycles, Microsoft unveiled retail prices weeks before each OS made the RTM, or “release to manufacturing,” milestone, and four or more months before retail sales started.
Microsoft disclosed Vista prices 58 days before that edition’s RTM, and 148 days before retail availability. Windows 7′s prices were made public 28 days before RTM and 120 days before its on-sale date.
Dell Names Chief As Sales Tank
Dell has snagged a former Hewlett-Packard executive to head up its server, networking and storage division, a critical area for Dell as it tries to expand its data center business and reduce its dependence on PCs.
Marius Haas was head of HP’s networking business before leaving two years ago to join an investment firm. On Tuesday he was named president of Dell’s enterprise solutions business, where he’ll oversee the engineering, development and marketing of Dell’s enterprise products.
Haas replaces Brad Anderson, who ran Dell’s enterprise division since 2005 and is now leaving the company.
Dell announced the news on the same day it reported financial results for its second quarter, which closed Aug. 3. Its profit for the period declined 18 percent from a year earlier, to US$732 million, while revenue fell 8 percent to $14.48 billion, Dell said.
Its server and networking sales were among the highlights for the quarter, up 14 percent from last year, while sales of storage products were down 13 percent. Together, the three product categories account for about one-fifth of Dell’s overall business.
Intel Preparing New SSDs
In addition to the recent price drop for its 320, 330 and 520 series SSDs, Intel is preparing a slight refresh scheduled to launch in Q3 and Q4 2012, according to the recently leaked roadmap at Chinese.VR-Zone.com.
The roadmap kicks off with a rather interesting entry-level 300 series that will apparently get a new 335 series update in Q3 2012. According to the roadmap, the 335 series will initially launch in 240GB capacity and get 80 and 180GB model update in Q1 2013. The new 335 series will most likely still be based on the same SF-2281 controller, be available in 2.5-inch form factor with the SATA 6Gbps interface, and will probably be paired up with a tweaked firmware and a new 20nm NAND flash memory.
PC Sales Takes Toll On Seagate
Seagate Technology Plc’s shares tumbled as much as 8 percent on Tuesday, after the hard disk drive (HDD) maker projected first-quarter revenue below estimates on slowing sales of personal computers.
The company has been hit by sluggish economic growth and shaky sales of PCs as consumers shift toward tablets and smartphones.
FBN Securities cut its price target on Seagate’s stock to $32, saying selling prices had started to decline from their peak levels after theThailand floods last year and inventory had started rising.
Seagate’s weak outlook follows an upbeat fiscal 2013 forecast from rival Western Digital Corp, which is banking on strong sales to big businesses.
The company forecast first-quarter sales of about $4 billion, below analysts’ estimates of $4.62 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
Super Talent Outs New SSDs
Super Talent has announced a new line of SATA III SSDs, the Super Talent SuperNova. Aimed at the business market, SuperNova SSDs will be available in 128 and 256GB capcities.
Although it has not announced any details regarding the new SuperNova lineup in its official press release, Super Talent did note that SuperNova features high transfer speeds and “the most secure encryption” on the planet, as well as the proprietary RAISE technology that virtually eliminates unrecoverable read errors.
After some digging around we managed to find that SuperNova is based on Sandforce SF-2200 controller paired up with ONFI Synchronous MLC NAND chips that should provide enterprise level of reliability. The sequential performance is set at 555MB/s read and 525MB/s for write while random 4K performance is at 90K IOPS read and 85K IOPS write, for both 128 and 256GB models.
Western Digital Goes Red
Western Digital has announced a completely new WD Red line of hard disk drives designed specifically for home and small office network attached storage (NAS) devices.
Standing shoulder to shoulder with WD’s Blue, Green, and Black series, the Red series offers 3.5-inch HDDs available in 1, 2 and 3TB capacities and are designed for NAS systems with one to five drive bays. As noted, all three models will be packed in a standard 3.5-inch form factor and feature SATA 6Gbps interface and 64MB of cache.
According to WD, these HDDs have been compatibility tested with top NAS box manufacturers and optimized for both power and performance, which is, at least according to WD, a much better way to go considering that consumers had to choose between desktop or high-end server drives for their NAS devices, with neither being cost effective or fully NAS compatible.
According to WD, the new Red line feature 3D Active Balance Plus enhanced balance control technology feature that should significantly improve overall drive performance and reliability.
Adata Outs 40MB/s UHS microSD Card
Adata has launched a 32GB UHS-1 microSD card offering 40MB/s write bandwidth.
Adata, which recently has been making a big push in the solid-state disk (SSD) drive market, has announced its first microSD cards that support the UHS-1 specification. The firm’s Premier Pro cards come in 8GB, 16GB and 32GB capacities with the firm citing read bandwidth of 45MB/s and all important write bandwidth of 40MB/s.
The SD Card Association defined the UHS-I specification as part of its SD Version 3.01 standard, and while Adata’s new cards boast impressive speeds there is a lot of headroom left, with UHS-1 supporting bandwidths up to 104MB/s. Adata’s cards, roughly translated to the ‘X’ speed rating used on a number of memory cards, come out at 266X.
Ray Chu, product manager at Adata said, “These cards have the best read and write performance among all comparable products offered by the industry’s key players. When that is combined with the aggressive pricing options in store for this line, the result is going to be a bonanza for our customers worldwide.”