BladeSystem Updates

First of all let me apologise for not having updated the blog in recent weeks; it has been a really busy end of year and I am only getting time to catch my breath this week before heading off to sunny Houston next week for a technology update on all things ProLiant. You can expect me to be out and about updating (berating) you our partners and customers as soon as I get back with all the latest and greatest info. Bookings are now being accepted :-).

So now to the updates...

Shorty is here
The biggest news in the past month has been the launch of the c3000 BladeSystem or 'Shorty' as we call it in HP. We had over 200 customers and partners at the launch events in Dublin and Belfast and interest since has been huge.

Shorty brings all the benefits and enterprise features of the bigger c7000 model to our SMB customers. It can hold up to 8 servers, storage or Tape Backup devices and is packaged in 6U. It plugs directly into standard wall outlets and is designed to work equally well in computer rooms or offices. It is a unique solution for the market and no other vendor has such an offering for the SMB market. More information on the product can be found at http://www.hp.com/ie/shorty.

You can also take an interactive guided tour of the c3000 at http://www.hp.com/go/smallsiteblades

There are a whole host of end of year BladeSystem and Insight Control Management toolset promotions to celebrate the launch of 'Shorty'. Your local HP reseller has all the information.

As well as the Shorty launch we also launched an 'All-in-One' Storage Blade, the AiO SB600c delivering 1.6TB of shared SAS storage. Check out http://www.hp.com/go/SB600c for more information.

The BL680c server also has arrived which is a quad socket, quad core Xeon server based on the new Tigerton chipset from Intel.

For those of you awaiting the new AMD Quad Core systems they have now slipped to March 2008 when HP will launch a full range of 2 and 4 socket blade and rack servers with the B3 chipset from AMD.

BladeBuilder University II (for HP Resellers)
On 13th November we will hold the BBU II. If you have sold at least one c-Class blade implementation or attended the well received Blade Builder University I in June, then this class is for you. This all new course focuses on business growth (versus selling technology in Blade Builder University I) and delivers modules that shows business partners exactly how to position the technology to our customers with real life examples and templates. More details to follow but places are limited and registration is now open on http://bladebuilderuniversity.com/

That's all for now - I'll post an update as soon as I get back from Texas!