HP, Intel roll out itanium-based systems

jaipur: the rs 15 billion hewlett packard india (hpi) and intel on monday jointly rolled out the first portfolio of itanium processor family (ipf)-based systems, services and solutions for the domestic market. hp, co-developer of itanium processor-based servers with intel, announced that hp workstation i2000 with upto two processors, hp servers rx4610 with upto four processors and hp server rx9610 with upto 16 processors, will be now available in the country.speaking at the launch here, hp marketing director (asia pacific-server operation division) peter hall said, "itanium is the future of computing which will stay for the next 15-20 years and hp's itanium offers a strategy with three operating systems that will supply complete vertical or horizontal scaling solutions." he claimed that hp was the first vendor in the country to offer first series of servers and workstations based on ipf and being the co-developer of its specifications with intel, it had unique advantage in allowing a simple and easy migration to this futuristic architecture which was investment protected transition. present on the occassion, director (south asia) of intel, avtar saini said "hp itanium processor-based servers have the data compatibility and therefore would not be required to undergo the cumbersome data migration ensuring end-users' benefit from the same breadth of applications and solutions available on the itanium processors platform." "the need of ipf became necessary with the fast emerging web economy demanding more security performance and faster computing technology," saini said. itanium processors-based servers were extremely suitable for large datasets management, security functions, high computing performance, and design and modeling of complex systems which can prove beneficial to large enterprises, saini said. however, hp india president arun k thiagrajan refused to elaborate on sales target for the first year but he said, "hp india has definately set some targets but initially we have to focus on building the market for it." "hp and intel has both jointly put in a huge pool of expertise to bring out the itanium processor," thiagrajan said. hp will also offer a host of itanium porting and migration services that include guidance to the users, free assessment workshops, solutions, delivery and on-line assistance, he said.