Hitachi Data Systems Maximizes Efficiency of VMware Environments with Support for VMware vSphere 5


VMware vSphere Storage Integration with Hitachi VSP and Hitachi AMS Optimizes IT Infrastructure and Accelerates Private and Public Cloud Deployments

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — July 12, 2011 — Hitachi Data Systems Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd. (NYSE: HIT / TSE: 6501), today announced integration with the new VMware vSphere® 5 and cloud infrastructure suite to help customers optimize and scale their IT infrastructures and accelerate their cloud deployments. New Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform (VSP) and Hitachi Adaptable Modular Storage (AMS) 2000 family support for VMware vSphere 5 will leverage reliable, high-performance storage array technology for greater virtual machine (VM) density, flexibility, efficiency and performance in VMware vSphere environments. In addition, with Hitachi VSP, customers can extend the full features and benefits of VMware vSphere 5 to external, third-party storage arrays. This unique capability enables customers to further reduce IT costs by protecting their existing investments.         

 

To fully realize the promise of their private or public cloud investments, customers and service providers will require a fully virtualized IT infrastructure to achieve scale and agility while lowering costs. As more applications are virtualized and the scale of deployments grows, storage plays an increasingly critical role in virtualized server environments. Hitachi VSP and Hitachi AMS provide a truly integrated foundation for growing VMware environments, giving customers unparalleled levels of flexibility and scalability.

 

“Hitachi Data Systems and VMware share the vision that virtualization is the foundational technology for cloud infrastructure and cloud computing,” said Hu Yoshida, chief technology officer, Hitachi Data Systems. “Being among the first vendors planning to integrate with VMware vSphere 5, HDS will ensure customers can continue to realize the maximum value from their VMware environments as deployments scale. The feature set of Hitachi storage platforms is ideal for virtual environments, providing customers with a foundation to flexibly and cost-effectively operate their data centers or private cloud infrastructures.”

 

“Integration with VMware vSphere 5 will have important benefits to customers, helping enterprises operate with greater efficiency and agility, while simultaneously laying the foundation for cloud infrastructures,” said Parag Patel, vice president, Global Strategic Alliances, VMware. “Hitachi Data Systems has been a valued, trusted technology alliance partner, and together, we will continue to help customers deliver adaptive, high-performing, and reliable IT services.”

 

Hitachi Technologies for VMware Cloud Infrastructure Environments

Hitachi VSP has the external storage virtualization capability necessary to address customers’ top business needs to optimize application performance and reduce IT costs. The unique Hitachi VSP 3D scaling architecture will allow customers to scale up, out and deep to extend VMware vSphere 5 and its new features including all new VMware vSphere Storage API integration, to third-party storage arrays for improved VM density, scalability and virtualized application performance.

 

Hitachi Dynamic Provisioning (HDP) allows organizations to create a storage pool from which capacity can be used on-demand to improve application performance and capacity utilization. Hitachi Dynamic Tiering (HDT) simplifies storage administration, ensures predictable performance and reduces costs in a tiered storage environment.  Hitachi VSP, with the industry’s highest reliability and performance, provides the ideal platform for virtualizing Tier 1 applications. Customers can take advantage of enterprise-class reliability, availability and performance with large HDP and HDT pools, and use multiple tiers of disk in Hitachi VSP. Through automation, HDT better aligns storage tiers with business needs by eliminating the complexity of managing multiple tiers and moving data around. HDS integration with VMware vSphere 5 will include the following:

 

-       VMware vSphere Storage Virtual Machine File Systems (VMFS): Offers improved virtual machine scalability and performance and allows customers to maximize its benefits when use with Hitachi Dynamic Provisioning and Hitachi Dynamic Tiering.

-       Support for more than 2TB with LUN: Provides support for more than 2TB with LUN for VMFS data stores. As customers look to simplify their storage provisioning, with HDP and HDT, they will be able to non-disruptively provision large VMFS data stores up to 60TB with more agility and efficiency, without sacrificing application performance. This will enable customers to take full advantage of the array’s capabilities to expand their use of VMs beyond test and development applications and virtualize their tier one applications.

-       VMware vSphere Storage APIs for Array Integration: In addition to an existing VAAI feature that offloads processing to storage arrays to make VMs and server cycles more available, the new version offers additional features with the ability to reclaim blocks of a thin provisioned LUN on the array when a virtual disk is deleted and thin provisioning pool full alerts. When used in conjunction with HDS hardware accelerated thin provisioning, customers will benefit from even tighter VMware alignment in environments with thin provisioning.

-       VMware vSphere Storage APIs for Storage Awareness: vSphere 5 includes a new API to provide storage array information for VMware vCenter Server. This new API integration will provide VMware vSphere 5 the ability to use advanced functions for policy-based storage management and Storage DRS for overall better VM performance and I/O load balancing.

-       VMware vCenter™ Site Recovery Manager 5: Provides hardware accelerated array-based replication, with tight VM integration and advanced disaster recovery planning, testing and failover features. New data center “re-protect” capabilities will allow increased VM integration while maximizing the advantage of powerful replication capabilities within Hitachi TrueCopy and Hitachi Universal Replicator. When coupled with Hitachi storage virtualization, these technologies can be extended to third party storage arrays with failover consistency across the data center and a single point of management.

 

Hitachi Data Systems Partnership with VMware

The integration between Hitachi VSP, Hitachi AMS and VMware vSphere 5 will be an important enhancement to the evolving relationship between Hitachi and VMware. Since 2002, Hitachi Data Systems and VMware have delivered innovative, end-to-end virtualization for storage consolidation, backup and archiving, business continuity and storage management.

 

As the leader in storage virtualization and an Elite-level partner in the VMware Technology Alliance Partner (TAP) program, HDS uniquely bridges the gap between server and storage infrastructures in customers' data centers and help customers optimize the operational efficiency and resiliency of their IT environments to achieve significant cost savings.

 

HDS Optimized Solutions for Virtualized Environments at VMworld® 2011

Attendees of VMworld 2011 can experience the full technical capabilities and customer benefits of integration between HDS and VMware technologies, including Hitachi VSP and Hitachi AMS integration with VMware vSphere 5, in HDS booth #533 at the Venetian Resort in Las Vegas, August 29 through September 1. For more information on VMworld, visit: www.vmworld.com

 

Web Resources

-       Read what Hu says about HDS integration with VMware vSphere 5

-       Hitachi end to end virtualization with VMware

-       More information about Hitachi VSP

-       More about Hitachi AMS 2000 family

-       Follow us on Twitter

-       Connect with us on LinkedIn

-       Friend us on Facebook

 

About Hitachi Data Systems

Hitachi Data Systems provides best-in-class information technologies, services and solutions that deliver compelling customer ROI, unmatched return on assets (ROA) and demonstrable business impact. With a vision that IT must be virtualized, automated, cloud-ready and sustainable, Hitachi Data Systems offers solutions that improve IT costs and agility. With more than 4,700 employees worldwide, Hitachi Data Systems does business in more than 100 countries and regions. Hitachi Data Systems products, services and solutions are trusted by the world’s leading enterprises, including more than 70 percent of the Fortune 100 and more than 80 percent of the Fortune Global 100. Hitachi Data Systems believes that data drives our world – and information is the new currency. To learn more, visit: http://www.hds.com.

 

About Hitachi, Ltd.

Hitachi, Ltd., (NYSE: HIT / TSE: 6501), headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, is a leading global electronics company with approximately 360,000 employees worldwide. Fiscal 2010 (ended March 31, 2011) consolidated revenues totaled 9,315 billion yen ($112.2 billion). Hitachi will focus more than ever on the Social Innovation Business, which includes information and telecommunication systems, power systems, environmental, industrial and transportation systems, and social and urban systems, as well as the sophisticated materials and key devices that support them. For more information on Hitachi, please visit the company's website at http://www.hitachi.com.

 


Veeam Announces Index to Measure Virtualization Penetration

New Quarterly Index Measures Virtualization Penetration Rate, Hypervisor Use and

Barriers to Adoption with Plans to Evolve into V-index.com Community Driven Project

 

Columbus, Ohio, July 18, 2011 - Veeam Software, innovative provider of VMware data protection, disaster recovery and VMware management solutions for virtual datacenter environments, has launched the V-index. Hosted on www.V-index.com, a site which Veeam plans to develop into a community portal, the V-index is a free resource which tracks the penetration rate of virtualization across the server estates of large-scale enterprises. Its aim is to take an ongoing snapshot of virtualization’s penetration within the enterprise, consolidation ratios, use of different hypervisors and possible barriers to further adoption.

 

“As the significant cost, power and efficiency benefits of virtualization accelerate its position within the enterprise, so the potential of all IT infrastructures to be based on virtual estates increases,” said Ratmir Timashev, President and CEO of Veeam. “The V-index is intended to provide a simple, measurable, consistent view of the impact of the technology and grant an understanding both of virtualization’s progress towards becoming the de facto IT platform and the obstacles in its way.”

For its initial, Q2 2011 findings the V-index reported the following:

 

·         The current V-index Penetration Rate is 39.4%. This means that 39.4% of all servers within all of the enterprises surveyed were virtual.

·         The average number of physical servers in an enterprise is 664.

·         91.9% of all enterprises are using virtualization to some degree.

·         Of these enterprises, each has on average 470 virtual machines. At the same time, the average number of physical hosts is 113 per enterprise.

·         The average perceived virtual machine to physical host consolidation ratio is 9.8:1, i.e. on average enterprises believe that each of their physical hosts is hosting 9.8 virtual machines.

·         However, by calculating the ratio of virtual machines to physical hosts for each individual enterprise, the actual average consolidation ratio comes to 6.3:1.

·          Of those enterprises using virtualization, 84% use VMware, 61% use Microsoft Hyper-V, 55.4% use Citrix Xen and 12% use other hypervisors.

·         58% of enterprises use VMware as their primary hypervisor, 20.2% use Citrix Xen, 18.6% use Microsoft Hyper-V and 3% use another hypervisor*.

·         Enterprises have identified a number of barriers to increased virtualization penetration:

o   38.8% cited concerns about reliability

o   37% cited the need to wait for a hardware refresh before deployment

o   32.4% cited concerns around application performance

o   32.4% cited concerns around backup and restoration

o   30.8% cited concerns around managing the virtual estate

·         81.4% of enterprises using virtualization are planning to increase their level of server virtualization in the next 12 months.

·          

“While the results show that virtualization has become a standard technology in most enterprises, it is clear that there is still room for increased penetration. We would expect to see consolidation ratios increase over time as organizations look to magnify the ROI they get from virtualization,” Timashev said. “We’ll be publishing the V-index results each quarter and, over time, will develop V-index.com into a community portal with real-time polls and community-driven content.”

 

*While the V-index focuses on server virtualization, it is possible that Virtual Desktop Infrastructures were also included in this statistic, due to the server-based nature of the technology. This in turn may have affected the reported statistics for primary hypervisor usage.

 

About the V-index:

The V-index was performed in Q2 2011, surveying 544 large-scale enterprises across the United States, United Kingdom, France and Germany. The study was performed by Vanson Bourne, an independent market research company. For more information please visit www.V-index.com.

 

About Veeam Software
Veeam Software, an Elite VMware Technology Alliance Partner, develops innovative software to manage VMware vSphere®. Veeam vPower™ provides advanced Virtualization-Powered Data Protection™ and is the underlying technology in Veeam Backup & Replication™, the #1 virtualization backup solution. Veeam ONE™ provides a single solution to optimize the performance, configuration and utilization of VMware environments and includes: Veeam Reporter™ for VMware capacity planning, change management, and reporting and chargeback; Veeam Business View™ for VMware business service management and categorization; and a choice of VMware monitoring options including the nworks Management Pack™ for VMware management in Microsoft System Center, the nworks Smart Plug-in™ for VMware management in HP Operations Manager and Veeam Monitor™ for framework-independent VMware monitoring. Learn more about Veeam Software by visiting www.veeam.com.

 

# # #

 

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Fujitsu Chooses Tech Data as sole distributor in Canada for Their New Enterprise Channel Program

Plans to leverage Tech Data’s Advanced Technology Solutions Centre

 

Mississauga, ON – July 13, 2011 – Tech Data Canada Corporation, a leading distributor of technology products, today announced an exciting partnership with Fujitsu to become the sole distributor in Canada for their new Enterprise Channel Program.

 

Key components of this program will be Fujitsu’s Primergy servers and Eternus storage systems. The Eternus and Primergy solutions are ideal for small and medium-sized businesses looking for pre-tested and certified system combinations that reflect high business availability and integrate easily into Dynamic Infrastructures.

 

“The combination of the Primergy performance and reliability with Tech Data’s logistics and value added services will allow Fujitsu to be a contender in the Canadian server market,” said Greg Myers, VP Marketing, Tech Data Canada.

 

“Tech Data has such strong technical abilities in addition to their excellent relationships within the Canadian VAR community,” said David Shearer, Executive Vice President of Sales, Fujitsu Canada, “We expect that we will be able to build solid partnerships with Tech Data partners and be able to leverage the Advanced Technology Solutions Centre (ATSC) to showcase our Primergy Servers and Eternus Storage.”

 

Another reason cited for the selection of Tech Data Canada also included the fact that Fujitsu has used Tech Data in the United States and has had very positive experiences. Furthermore, Fujitsu is keenly aware of Tech Data Canada’s excellent track record in supporting resellers in both the private and public sectors.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

About Fujitsu Canada
Fujitsu Canada is the Canadian subsidiary of Fujitsu, the world’s third largest IT services provider. It provides a full range of IT services to organizations in all sectors, including system integration and on‑site/remote outsourcing, as well as services for data centers (applications, operations, infrastructure, customer service, system lifecycle). It also provides business consulting services, customized industry solutions as well as high-performance, high-reliability computing platforms including servers, storage devices, software, point-of-sale systems and mobile devices. For more information, visit http://fujitsu.com/ca.

 

About Tech Data Canada

Tech Data Corporation (NASDAQ GS: TECD) is one of the world’s largest distributors of technology products from leading IT hardware and software producers. Tech Data serves more than 125,000 IT solution providers in over 100 countries. Every day, these resellers depend on Tech Data to cost-effectively support the technology needs of end users, including small and medium businesses (SMB), large enterprises and government agencies. Ranked 109th on the FORTUNE 500®, Tech Data generated over $24.3 billion in net sales for its fiscal year ended January 31, 2011. To learn more, visit www.techdata.ca. Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter.

Majority of Enterprises Are Disappointed in Virtualization’s Cost Savings, CA Technologies Survey Reveals

Automation Needed to Realize the Financial Benefits of Virtualization and Cloud Computing

ISLANDIA, N.Y, July 12, 2011 – CA Technologies (NASDAQ:CA) today announced the results of an independently conducted research survey* on the state of IT automation. The survey of 460 IT decision-makers from medium and large enterprises found that more than 60 percent are disappointed in virtualization’s cost savings. Moreover, respondents believe that automation plays a key role in reaping the financial benefits of virtualization and cloud computing.

Nearly all (95 percent) respondents have implemented, are piloting, or plan to implement virtualization in their organization. A large majority cited reducing costs (85 percent) and increasing server utilization (84 percent) as the primary reasons to deploy virtualization. However, 63 percent of respondents stated that they have not experienced as much savings as expected, and five percent said the complexities of virtualization had actually introduced new costs.

“Virtualization is a bean counter’s dream, but it can be an operational nightmare,” stated respondent Ian Watts, senior technical manager of BT Americas, Inc. “Change management is a huge overhead, as any changes need to be accepted by all applications and users sharing the same virtualization kit. While many organizations are seeing benefits from virtualization, such as reduced hardware spending and improved server utilization, these benefits often get overshadowed by the lack of productivity improvements in data center staffing and operations.”

The Need for Automation

The survey shows there is a direct correlation between IT service automation in a virtualized environment and cost-savings. For example, 44 percent of survey respondents who said most of their server provisioning processes are automated report they have significantly reduced costs through virtualization. Conversely, 48 percent of those who said the complexities of virtualization have introduced new costs also said most of their server provisioning processes are manual.

“This survey further demonstrates that the promised benefits of virtualization and cloud computing will be hard to realize without first standardizing and automating routine IT processes,” said Roger Pilc, general manager, Virtualization and Automation, CA Technologies. “Without automation, IT staff can be overwhelmed by the complexities and challenges of managing a highly distributed IT infrastructure consisting of virtual and physical servers, applications and dynamic cloud-based services. These complexities can negate any benefits organizations hope to realize as this data shows.”

A New Approach is Required

To become more efficient and to realize the full benefits from virtualization and cloud computing, IT organizations need to automate and integrate the physical and virtual server configuration, provisioning, monitoring, security, software patching and more across a heterogeneous enterprise. They need to reduce their reliance on manual processes, and implement tools and procedures that automate standard management and administrative tasks, as well as deliver consistent workload management. IT automation is needed to ease management across a variety of computing environments, including physical, virtual and cloud.

*About the Survey

The survey was conducted by UBM TechWeb on behalf of CA Technologies.  UBM TechWeb was responsible for all programming and data analysis. These procedures were carried out in strict accordance with standard market research practices. The full results of the survey are available in a webcast and a free report entitled The State of IT Automation.

About CA Technologies

CA Technologies (NASDAQ: CA) is an IT management software and solutions company with expertise across all IT environments – from mainframe and distributed, to virtual and cloud. CA Technologies manages and secures IT environments and enables customers to deliver more flexible IT services. CA Technologies innovative products and services provide the insight and control essential for IT organizations to power business agility. The majority of the Global Fortune 500 relies on CA Technologies to manage evolving IT ecosystems. For additional information, visit CA Technologies at www.ca.com.


WD(R) to Enter Small Business Market With Small Office Storage Servers

Company Teaming with Microsoft to Simplify Workgroup Sharing and Data Protection for Small Business Owners

IRVINE, Calif., July 12, 2011 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ --

Western Digital® (NYSE: WDC), a leader in digital storage solutions, announced it will be offering a small-office storage server product and has signed an OEM software agreement with Microsoft Corporation to include the Windows® Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials operating system software. WD® will combine its leading storage technologies with Microsoft's operating system to deliver a complete storage solution for the small business market. The result will be a product that simplifies connection, protection and collaboration online for small businesses and the information technology services organizations that support them.

Fast, dependable and secure access to data, along with complete backup and recovery capability are becoming as crucial for small-to-medium-sized businesses (SMBs) as it is for large enterprises. According to Forrester Research, SMBs will outpace the projected IT market growth rate of 7.1%. In terms of infrastructure spending increases, storage and servers top SMBs' hardware budget plans. Fifty-three percent of SMBs indicate that they will increase their storage spend.(1) To serve this market, WD joined with Microsoft to incorporate the most advanced online features so businesses can easily and securely share information with clients, consultants or satellite offices located anywhere in the world.

"Small businesses will find great value in the combination of WD's hardware solutions and the recently released Microsoft Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials solution from Microsoft. I am excited about the opportunity we have with WD and their solutions for helping small businesses run more efficiently," said

Nick Parker
, VP of Worldwide Marketing for the OEM Division at Microsoft.

"By combining Microsoft's platform with WD's strength in the storage market, the two organizations bring extraordinary synergies that boost productivity and efficiency for small business. With this, WD will offer storage solutions for small business that provides centralized, online shared storage capable of meeting the storage requirements of the small business owners in today's fast paced business environment," said

Thomas Gallivan
, WD's vice president of marketing for SMB branded products.

To receive future sales and product information regarding WD's upcoming SMB products, please email smbstorage@wdc.com.

About WD

WD, one of the storage industry's pioneers and long-time leaders, provides products and services for people and organizations that collect, manage and use digital information. The company designs and produces reliable, high-performance hard drives and solid state drives that keep users' data accessible and secure from loss. Its advanced technologies are configured into applications for client and enterprise computing, embedded systems and consumer electronics, as well as its own consumer storage and home entertainment products.

WD was founded in 1970. The company's storage products are marketed to leading OEMs, systems manufacturers, selected resellers and retailers under the Western Digital® and WD brand names. Visit the Investor section of the company's website (www.westerndigital.com) to access a variety of financial and investor information.

Western Digital, WD, and the WD logo are registered trademarks of Western Digital Technologies, Inc. Other marks may be mentioned herein that belong to other companies. All other brand and product names mentioned herein are the property of their respective companies.

(1) Forrester Research, Demand Insights: The SMB Hardware Infrastructure Market,

April 20, 2011

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20000711/WDCLOGO)

SOURCE Western Digital Technologies

HP Accelerates Market Share Gains in Networking Worldwide and in Every Region

PALO ALTO, Calif. –- HP today announced it has achieved market share gains across all networking segments in every region of the world.


According to a recently issued report by analyst firm Dell’Oro Group,(1)HP Networking continues to grow faster than the market while increasing its revenue market share at the expense of the competition.


Specifically, the report reveals that HP gained 2.5 percentage points worldwide for layer 2/layer 3 Ethernet switching revenue market share in the first quarter of 2011. Cisco’s share fell 5.8 points in the same period.


HP also gained 2.5 percentage points in router and 2.2 points in wireless local area network (WLAN) revenue market share over the same period,(1) while Cisco’s share declined by 3.1 points in router and 0.4 points in WLAN.


In Canada, HP Networking outpaced market growth and increased market share year-over-year, according to a recent IDC Canada report(2). The report shows that HP gained 2 points in enterprise switching revenue market share from Q1 2010 to Q1 2011(3), while growing WLAN revenues 4.7 times faster than the market to gain 2.1 points in WLAN market share during the same period.


With HP, clients are transitioning to simpler, more flexible and open networks that drive new levels of agility into their enterprise environments. The result is market growth illustrating customer confidence in HP Networking is continuing to accelerate on a global basis.


To further spur HP’s growth in networking, the company has recently introduced the HP FlexNetwork architecture, the industry’s only unified architecture for the data center, campus and branch. A core component of the HP Converged Infrastructure, the HP FlexNetwork architecture unifies network silos by ensuring protocols are implemented consistently across all networked devices throughout an enterprise.


“Customers are telling us that there is a significant sense of urgency to eliminate their inflexible, complex and expensive networks,” said Mike Banic, vice president, Global Marketing, Networking, HP. “As our market share gains demonstrate, customers around the world are choosing HP to create networks that are more flexible and easier to manage – better preparing them to adapt to cloud and other dynamic computing models.”


Other HP highlights of the recent Dell’Oro Group report include:

  • Solidified No. 1 position in the smart managed switch category with 34 percent market share and a 13 percentage point lead over the second-place vendor.(4)
  • Strengthened No. 2 position in switching and router markets, both in revenue and unit share, with 12 percent revenue and 20.2 percent port share in switching, as well as 5.5 percent revenue and 10.3 percent unit share in routers.(1)
  • Gained switching revenue share year over year in all regions. Outpaced the market in switching revenue share growth in the Asia Pacific and Japan region during the period, growing from 14.6 percent to 20.1 percent, and in Latin America, which grew from 12.6 percent to 16.1 percent over the same period.(1)
  • Outperformed the market in switching, routing and WLAN categories during the two years since the first quarter 2009.(1)

More information about HP Networking solutions is available at www.hp.com/networking.


HP Converged Infrastructure is key to an Instant-On Enterprise. In a world of continuous connectivity, the Instant-On Enterprise embeds technology in everything it does to serve customers, employees, partners and citizens with whatever they need, instantly.


About HP

HP creates new possibilities for technology to have a meaningful impact on people, businesses, governments and society. The world’s largest technology company, HP brings together a portfolio that spans printing, personal computing, software, services and IT infrastructure at the convergence of the cloud and connectivity, creating seamless, secure, context-aware experiences for a connected world. More information about HP (NYSE: HPQ) is available at http://www.hp.com.


(1) “L2-3 Ethernet Vendor Table Q12011” and “Routers Enterprise Vendor Tables Q12011,” Dell’Oro Group, June 2011.
(2) IDC's Canadian Quarterly Enterprise Network Tracker, June 2011
(3) Year over year represent calendar Q1 11 over calendar Q1 10
(4) “Ethernet Switch Quarterly Report for Q12011,” Dell’Oro Group, May 2011.


This news advisory contains forward-looking statements that involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions. If such risks or uncertainties materialize or such assumptions prove incorrect, the results of HP and its consolidated subsidiaries could differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements and assumptions. All statements other than statements of historical fact are statements that could be deemed forward-looking statements, including but not limited to statements of the plans, strategies and objectives of management for future operations; any statements concerning expected development, performance or market share relating to products and services; any statements regarding anticipated operational and financial results; any statements of expectation or belief; and any statements of assumptions underlying any of the foregoing. Risks, uncertainties and assumptions include macroeconomic and geopolitical trends and events; the competitive pressures faced by HP’s businesses; the development and transition of new products and services (and the enhancement of existing products and services) to meet customer needs and respond to emerging technological trends; the execution and performance of contracts by HP and its customers, suppliers and partners; the achievement of expected operational and financial results; and other risks that are described in HP’s Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the fiscal quarter ended April 30, 2011 and HP’s other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including but not limited to HP’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended October 31, 2010. HP assumes no obligation and does not intend to update these forward-looking statements.

© 2011 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. The only warranties for HP products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty. HP shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein.

IBM Analytics Technology to Help Reduce Crime, Improve Public Safety in British Columbia

TORONTO, ON and VANCOUVER, BC, June 28, 2011—Police in British Columbia are joining an increasing number of public safety organizations throughout the world who use advanced software from IBM [NYSE:IBM] to mine, share and extract intelligence from data. Police Records Information Management Environment for British Columbia (PRIME-BC) has selected IBM analytics software to improve police investigative and prevention programs and respond to crime and emergency situations more efficiently.

In its first multi-police jurisdictional implementation, IBM's technology will analyze the more than four million records in the PRIME-BC records management system used by all of BC's municipal police departments and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police detachments. The IBM Entity Analytics capability will help to eliminate duplicate entries and match partial or intentionally inaccurate information.

"Establishing accurate identities and understanding relationships between individuals is an important step in law enforcement," said PRIMECorp General Manager Russell Sanderson. "IBM is helping us turn data into intelligence to solve and fight crime, and in the process, significantly increase officer safety and reduce public risk."

Multiple entries on a single individual can lead to fragmented and incomplete intelligence and potentially dangerous situations, if a query fails to reveal a person's history of violence, mental health issues, or criminal record due to inconsistencies in the way data such as name or date of birth was recorded—for example "John Doe" vs. "John B. Doe." Some estimate as many as one in five records in PRIME-BC's database are duplicate entries.

IBM's technology will help the agencies quickly and accurately cull through data on individuals collected during traffic stops, 911 calls, witness interviews and criminal investigations—currently stored in three separate repositories—and illuminate duplicate entries.

Once the system is in place, the province's 9,600 officers will have faster access to all police records across the province, providing them with a more comprehensive, real-time view of a particular individual. The system will be available in the field via more than 2,000 mobile units in patrol cars.

PRIME-BC will also use the IBM technology to help reduce illegal operations among gangs, and other drug distribution activities, by gaining additional insight on potential relationships among criminals. The software will be used to illuminate interconnectedness among records, by finding common identifying factors.

"This software addresses the two most fundamental limitations to information-sharing that law enforcement agencies face: data quality and privacy concerns," says Darryl Plecas, a professor of criminology at the University of Fraser Valley in Abbotsford, BC. "PRIME-BC's implementation of Entity Analytics has the potential to help uncover and manage potential threats and fraudulent activity by individuals and groups attempting to mask, hide, or misrepresent their identities."

IBM is working with police in Edmonton as well as New York City, Memphis, Madrid and Poland on new analytics technologies that extract information that identifies patterns and help predict, prevent and solve crimes faster.

For more about how IBM is helping improve public safety, please visit: http://www.ibm.com/smarterplanet/us/en/public_safety/ideas/.

VIDEO
To see an interview with Russell Sanderson about PRIME-BC's use of IBM analytics software, please visit (link resides outside ibm.com)

Contact(s) information: Leslie Plant
IBM Media Relations
416-478-9840
laplant@ca.ibm.com

Russell Sanderson
PRIMECorp
604-581-1258
russell.sanderson@primebc.ca

Citrix Changes the Game in Cloud Infrastructure with Cloud.com Acquisition

Market Leading Cloud.com Platform Lets Customers Build Clouds the Way the World's Most Successful Clouds Are Built

SANTA CLARA, Calif., Jul 12, 2011 (BUSINESS WIRE) --

Citrix Systems today announced it has completed the acquisition of Cloud.com, a market leading provider of software infrastructure platforms for cloud providers. The company's innovative CloudStack(TM) product line helps providers of all types deploy and manage simple, cost-effective cloud services that are scalable, secure, and open by design. This acquisition further establishes Citrix as a leader in infrastructure for the rapidly growing cloud provider market. The terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

The transition from the PC Era to the Cloud Era is expected to fuel a massive build out in cloud infrastructure, creating a new market projected to exceed $11 billion by the end of 2013, according to industry analystsi. This market will feature thousands of providers of all shapes and sizes, offering a vast array of new cloud services ranging from business, infrastructure and development offerings, to consumer, mobile and gaming services. Most of the clouds that service this market will look nothing like traditional enterprise datacenters. They will run on radically different platforms purpose-built for cloud computing - platforms designed from the ground up to deliver multi-tier, multi-tenant services in the simplest and most cost-effective way. The world's largest and most successful public clouds are all built this way today.

The Cloud.com product line is not a traditional enterprise server virtualization platform with cloud management layered on top. It is a powerful, hypervisor-agnostic solution designed from the ground up to help providers build clouds the way the world's largest and most successful public clouds are built - simple, automated, elastic, scalable and efficient. This proven approach has helped Cloud.com customers around the world roll out new cloud services up to 50 times faster, at one fifth the cost of alternative solutionsii.

With the addition of Cloud.com, Citrix now offers a complete portfolio of virtualization, orchestration and networking solutions purpose built for the Cloud Era - solutions that are not only among the market leaders individually, but also designed to help customers avoid vendor lock-in by letting them use the hardware, software, management products and service providers of their choice.

Citrix Commitment to Openness

A commitment to openness and interoperability has been a central pillar for both Citrix and Cloud.com, and will accelerate further with this acquisition. The Cloud.com product line will continue to support leading commercial hypervisors such as Citrix XenServer(R) and VMware vSphere, as well as open source hypervisors like Xen(R). Citrix intends to add support for Microsoft products like Hyper-V and System Center to the Cloud.com product line, as well as support a full range of "platform-as-a-service" development environments, storage systems, servers and management software.

A key part of this commitment to openness is a full embrace of open source as an essential element of cloud computing. In addition to providing leadership in communities like Xen.org at the virtualization layer, this acquisition will help Citrix further accelerate its support of OpenStack, the popular open source cloud infrastructure movement that now includes over 1,100 cloud developers, and more than 80 member companies. As a founding member of Openstack.org, Citrix is the second largest contributor to the project and is a member of the OpenStack policy board.

Citrix product support for OpenStack was initially announced at the recent Citrix Synergy conference under the code name "Project Olympus." With this acquisition, Citrix will also be extending OpenStack support to the Cloud.com product line in an upcoming release later this year.

Citrix Cloud Infrastructure Portfolio

With the addition of Cloud.com, the Citrix infrastructure portfolio for cloud providers will include:

Cloud Platform Products:

  • CloudStack (new) - next generation, hypervisor-agnostic, cloud infrastructure platform.
  • XenServer - secure, cloud-optimized virtualization platform

Cloud Networking Products:

  • NetScaler(R) Cloud Gateway - sits at the "front door" of corporate datacenters giving IT an easy, unified way to orchestrate the delivery of any mix of SaaS, web and Windows apps to end users on any device.
  • NetScaler Cloud Bridge - sits at the "back door" of corporate datacenters, giving IT unlimited capacity by seamlessly and securely extending any datacenter to any external cloud service, regardless of hypervisor or platform.
  • NetScaler SDX, MPX and VPX - powerful networking platforms designed from the ground up to serve as a "service delivery fabric" for virtual datacenters and clouds.

App and Desktop Products:

  • XenApp(TM) and XenDesktop(R) - market leading virtualization solutions that let cloud providers deliver Windows apps and desktops as a service to any device.

Citrix Cloud Platforms Product Group

The addition of Cloud.com brings Citrix an incredibly talented team that includes some of the world's most experienced cloud computing experts. Cloud.com CEO Sheng Liang will continue to lead the design, architecture and technology of the CloudStack product line, reporting to Sameer Dholakia, group vice president and general manager of the newly-formed Cloud Platforms product group at Citrix.

Product Availability

The Cloud.com CloudStack solution is available to cloud providers today, with Citrix branded versions coming in a future release.

Quotes

Mark Templeton, President and CEO, Citrix Systems, Inc.

"As the industry moves into the Cloud Era, Citrix is committed to leading the charge with powerful solutions that make the cloud more open, more secure, and more personal. We are delighted to welcome the Cloud.com team to the Citrix family to focus our combined efforts on helping customers of all sizes make a difference in business, and in the lives of their customers and employees."

Sheng Liang, CEO and Founder, Cloud.com

"Cloud.com is the platform behind many of the world's most innovative and successful clouds. Joining forces with Citrix will dramatically accelerate our mission to help customers achieve all the promise cloud computing has to offer, in a way that's open, secure and efficient."

Jim Curry, GM of Cloud Builders, Rackspace

"Citrix has been a leader in the creation of OpenStack, assembling an impressive team of developers and creating Project Olympus to take open cloud-scale technology into the market. With the addition of the Cloud.com team, Citrix is furthering their commitment to OpenStack, ensuring that the OpenStack platform and APIs are even more widely available to customers everywhere."

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About Citrix

Citrix Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CTXS) is a leading provider of virtual computing solutions that help people work and play from anywhere on any device. More than 230,000 enterprises rely on Citrix to create better ways for people, IT and business to work through virtual meetings, desktops and datacenters. Citrix virtualization, networking and cloud solutions deliver over 100 million corporate desktops and touch 75 percent of Internet users each day. Citrix partners with over 10,000 companies in 100 countries. Annual revenue in 2010 was $1.87 billion. Learn more at www.citrix.com.

Dell Efficient IT Solutions Growth Strategy Driving Its Stronger Financial Performance

Date : 15/07/2011

  • Executives share vision for long-term value creation at annual meeting of stockholders
  • Revenue over past four completed quarters exceeded company’s long-term, 5-7 percent growth goal
  • GAAP operating income of 6.7 percent during past four completed quarters near 7 percent goal

Dell’s strategy to develop its capability as an efficient technology solutions provider, grow faster than the industry in strategic areas and shift the company’s mix to higher-value products and solutions was outlined here today at the company’s annual stockholders meeting.

During the meeting, Michael Dell, chairman and CEO, and Brian Gladden, chief financial officer, reviewed the company’s business progress and its competitively differentiated strategy to deliver solutions that are highly capable, affordable and flexible to meet the needs of large enterprises, public institutions, small and mid-size businesses.

Mr. Dell described the company’s focus on next-generation computing solutions and intelligent data management; services, security and cloud; and end-user computing, which are critical to driving industry leadership and growing operating income and cash flow over time.

“We are investing for growth, building on our strengths and have developed the solutions portfolio that our customers value,” said Mr. Dell. “We’ve made significant progress and it is reflected in our financial performance.”

Mr. Gladden described key priorities underway to enable the company to deliver on its long-term value creation framework of 5-7 percent revenue growth, GAAP operating income of more than 7 percent and cash flow from operations exceeding net income. He also said the company will continue to invest in differentiated enterprise solutions and services to help the company reach its goals.

“We’re increasingly optimistic about our development of important capabilities for the company and the delivery of new solutions for our customers, and encouraged by the financial results we’ve delivered,” said Mr. Gladden.

In formal business at the meeting, stockholders:

  • Re-elected 10 company directors: James W. Breyer; Donald J. Carty; Michael S. Dell; William H. Gray, III; Gerard J. Kleisterlee; Thomas W. Luce, III; Klaus S. Luft; Alex J. Mandl; Shantanu Narayen; and, Ross Perot, Jr.;
  • Approved the compensation of Dell’s named executive officers as disclosed in the company’s proxy statement;
  • Approved one year as the frequency with which Dell holds a stockholder advisory vote to approve the compensation of its named executive officers;
  • Rejected a stockholder proposal to adopt a policy that the Board’s chairman be an independent director;
  • Rejected a stockholder proposal to permit the company’s stockholders to act by written consent instead of at a meeting of stockholders;
  • Rejected a stockholder proposal that the Board declare a quarterly dividend; and,
  • Ratified PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP as Dell’s independent auditor for fiscal 2012.

Judy Lewent and Sam Nunn, company directors since May 2001 and December 1999 respectively, retired from the Board, effective today, as previously announced.

“Dell and its stockholders have benefitted greatly from the leadership and perspective Judy and Sam have provided,” said Mr. Dell. “We’re grateful for their guidance during their time on the Dell Board, and we wish them well in all their endeavors.”

Presentations and other information for the stockholders meeting can be found at: www.dell.com/investors.

About Dell

Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) listens to customers and delivers worldwide innovative technology, business solutions and services they trust and value. For more information, visit www.dell.com.

NEC, LENOVO FINALIZE JOINT VENTURE AND LAUNCH JAPAN’S #1 PC COMPANY

NEC Lenovo Japan to Deliver Enhanced Innovations, Support and Customer Services as Strategic Alliance Delivers Synergy, Scale and Global Reach
Beijing and Tokyo, July 4, 2011: Lenovo and NEC Corporation (NEC) today announced the launch of NEC Lenovo Japan Group, which becomes Japan’s biggest(*) PC provider. According to recent analyst figures, the new group will total nearly 25 percent of Japan’s PC market, with a strong presence in both the commercial/government sector and in consumer sales.
 
The group will leverage the complementary strengths and expertise of NEC and Lenovo to provide greater value to users and partners in Japan offering competitive and innovative products and combining high standard services. 
 
“We are proud to announce the launch of NEC Lenovo Japan Group. We have been engaged in extensive talks with NEC since the announcement of the joint venture in January to further mutual growth and cement our foundation for delivering innovative, high-quality products and services to Japanese customers. We would like to stress again that we are fully committed to the Japanese market and we are determined to continue to lead the PC industry in Japan and expand this strategic alliance beyond the PC business” stated Yang Yuanqing, CEO of Lenovo.
 
Based on the strategic alliance between NEC and Lenovo, NEC Lenovo Japan Group comprises of three companies: the holding company, Lenovo NEC Holdings B.V., newly founded on July 1, and its 100 percent owned subsidiary companies, NEC Personal Computers Ltd., newly formed by separating NEC’s PC business unit from NEC Personal Products Ltd., and Lenovo Japan Ltd. As a result of this transaction, NEC has received from Lenovo US$175 million through an issue of Lenovo shares.
 
NEC and Lenovo both hold stakes in the joint venture (51 percent by Lenovo and 49 percent by NEC). Roderick Lappin, President of Lenovo Japan Ltd., is Executive Chairman of the joint venture whilst Hideyo Takasu, President and representative director of NEC Personal Computers Ltd., is President and CEO.
 
“With this alliance, both companies will continue to progress and be committed to Japanese PC users as well as contributing more to the growth of the PC market in Japan. We will also strengthen our efforts to achieve the No.1 customer satisfaction for our quality, function and service. Furthermore, based on this strategic partnership, we will continue to discuss and assess new opportunities with this global partnership” stated Nobuhiro Endo, President of NEC.
 
The companies are inviting customers to celebrate the launch of the new joint venture with a program that will offer one million yen worth of prizes through NEC Direct and Lenovo Shopping, shopping sites belonging to both companies. Winners will be selected by lottery.  Details of the “NEC Lenovo Japan Group Launch Celebration Campaign,” which runs from July 4, 2011 to August 4, 2011 are available at http://campaign.nec-lenovo.jp/.    
 
Along with the formal launch of the joint venture, NEC Lenovo Japan today announced the following two new initiatives to enhance the customers’ experience in technical support:
 
1)     NEC’s “Product Help Support” service, provided by 121 Contact Center, will now extend free technical support beyond the first year. Previously customers had to pay for a second year of support, but from January 2012, customers will receive free support for the lifetime of their PC ownership. This free customer support service will enable NEC to further enhance the user experience by making the company’s trouble-shooting service more readily available. Terms of the product support service for enterprise customers will remain unchanged.
 
2)     NEC Personal Computer Ltd. will bring its extensive know-how in customer services to the joint venture, and will be entrusted with Lenovo’s telephone-based consumer PC support service in Japan from October 2011.   This will help Lenovo deliver even stronger local support to its customers in Japan. Terms of the product support service for enterprise customers will remain unchanged.
 
The new group will maintain the Lenovo and NEC brands and each product will continue to be sold through their existing respective sales channels. By combining the strengths of the two companies such as NEC’s extensive experience in Japan and Lenovo’s global scale in supply chain and procurement, Lenovo and NEC will bolster their product development structures and deliver high-quality, high-performance products.
 
 *Source: IDC Japan, Japan Personal Computing Quarterly Model Analysis Q1 CA2011
 
About Lenovo
Lenovo (HKSE: 992) (ADR: LNVGY) is a $US21 billion personal technology company serving customers in more than 160 countries, and the world’s fourth-largest PC vendor. Dedicated to building exceptionally engineered PCs and mobile internet devices, Lenovo’s business is built on product innovation, a highly-efficient global supply chain and strong strategic execution. Formed by Lenovo Group’s acquisition of the former IBM Personal Computing Division, the company develops, manufactures and markets reliable, high-quality, secure and easy-to-use technology products and services. Its product lines include legendary Think-branded commercial PCs and Idea-branded consumer PCs, as well as servers, workstations, and a family of mobile internet devices, including tablets and smart phones. Lenovo has major research centers in Yamato, Japan; Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen, China; and Raleigh, North Carolina. For more information see www.lenovo.com
 
 
About NEC Corporation
NEC Corporation (TSE:6701) is a leader in the integration of IT and network technologies that benefit businesses and people around the world. By providing a combination of products and solutions that cross utilize the company’s experience and global resources, NEC’s advanced technologies meet the complex and ever-changing needs of its customers. NEC brings more than 100 years of expertise in technological innovation to empower people, businesses and society. For more information, visit NEC at http://www.nec.com