Upfront
ASCDI in the news
Meet the new members
Global leasing
IBM
Market
RFID
Storage

Upfront

Egads! IBM embraces Solaris for the mainframe
In an example of the computer industry's higher level of abstraction -- in this case, known as horse trading -- IBM has called attention to a demonstration of Solaris running on the mainframe. It's also endorsed Sun Microsystems' xVM product, its entry into virtualization for x86 servers. The endorsement is notable at a time when Sun is seeking credibility for yet another hypervisor entrant into the virtualization market. IBM's xVM endorsement is practically the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval, since it invented virtualization more than 40 years ago. Sun in turn has assisted a third party, the research and development firm Sine Nomine Associates in Ashburn, Va., in getting Sun's OpenSolaris operating system to run on the IBM mainframe, something that many observers said would never happen. If nothing else, the mutual pats on the back represent a considerable thaw in the often-chilly relations between Sun and IBM, which once struggled with each other over whether Sun should retain proprietary control over Java. It was not clear when Solaris on the mainframe would move from a conference demonstration to an available option, but David Boyes, president of Sine Nomine, called the demonstration "a strategic step for all three companies."
Visit www.sun.com or www.ibm.com.
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ASCDI in the news

ASCDI defends plight of used hardware dealers
Computer dealers that sell used hardware unfairly get a bad rap, says Joe Marion, president of the Association of Service and Computer Dealers International (ASCDI). In discussing the ASCDI members' plight, one disturbing trend he told eChannelLine is that some manufacturers feel threatened by the sale of their own used hardware by ASCDI dealers. "They seem to paint the secondary market as 'crooks,' 'thieves' and 'dishonest guys'," he said. "I have seen a couple of articles where they call the secondary market, 'the black market.' It is kind of disingenuous because in fact the equipment that our members are dealing with is not stolen. It is legal."
Read entire article.


Disposal Done Right
Even if it was environmentally sound to toss your old hard drives into a dumpster, you’d risk exposing confidential data to whoever happened to be around. And although you can attempt to obliterate data by overwriting every sector on each drive, doing so consumes time and energy—and still fails to dispose with the physical entity. “Formatting drives destroys the file system but leaves data easily recoverable. Degaussing with a magnetic field often fails to completely destroy data. And physical destruction by hammering, drilling, or other violent behavior may disable the drive mechanism but does little to actually destroy the data residing on hard drive platters,” explains Leigh Lanzet, director of business development for Morgen Industries, which specializes in electronic media destruction, or EMD for short. According to Lanzet, EMD encompasses the process of physically shredding electronic media and documenting the process so companies know their media was securely destroyed and disposed of and can offer documentation for regulatory purposes.
Read entire article.
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Meet the new members

CentricsIT
CentricsIT is an independent technology distributor that provides solutions focused around top tier technology manufacturers such as Cisco, Sun Microsystems, IBM, Hewlett Packard and others.  Our sales staff is trained to offer product information that allows our customers to better navigate the secondary market.  We ensure that our large inventory has the latest and most up to date market pricing and all system integration and configuration is done at our Norcross, Georgia facility by manufacturer trained engineers.  This hardware expertise is complimented by a suite of solutions that include rentals, multi-vendor support, contract remarketing, data center moves and advanced replacement.  For a quote or to learn more about CentricsIT please visit us at www.CentricsIT.com.

Derek Odegard
Direct:  678.495.1320
Fax:     678.495.1302
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Global leasing

HP Financial, ANZ partner on Australian IT leasing program
Hewlett Packard has reportedly joined forces with a division of Australia's ANZ Bank to lease IT equipment and expand financing options for business customers in the country. According to local press reports, ANZ Institutional said the joint branding alliance is the first of its kind for an Australian bank.  ANZ officials said the partnership will allow the bank to capitalize on a trend among businesses to rent and lease IT equipment rather than purchase it outright. Richard Bailey, HP Financial Services' Asia-Pacific region vice president and managing director, said the alliance was a win for customers. "Australia boasts a strong, vibrant economy and we're delighted to join with ANZ to help businesses acquire leading-edge technology they need to compete and win in the global marketplace," Bailey told Australia's online CIO Magazine.
Visit www.hp.com/hpfinancialservices.
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IBM

IBM Accelerates portal-based learning and business process management
IBM announced an expansion of its WebSphere Portal software portfolio with the availability of two additional business-ready packages -- called accelerators -- that can be easily added to a customer's portal to drive online training projects and automate key business processes. These two new accelerators provide training, development and education projects through an IBM Lotus Sametime Web conference -- and also make it easier for customers to automate core business processes with easy entry and integration of data and electronic forms across numerous systems. The two accelerators add to the collection that IBM has released incrementally since April. These include: IBM Self-Service Accelerator for human resources tasks; IBM Dashboard Accelerator; IBM Collaboration Accelerator for team collaboration; IBM Content Accelerator for building and managing websites; and IBM Enterprise Suite Accelerator which supports multiple portal projects, including Web content management and electronic forms.
Visit www.ibm.com.
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Market

HP, Acer beat up on Dell in Q3 PC rankings
HP expanded its PC market share lead over Dell, and Acer snatched the number two ranking in laptops away from its beleaguered rival during the third quarter, reports market researcher iSuppli. HP's market share rose to 19.2 percent as it widened its lead over second place Dell, which held a 14.6 percent share, iSuppli reported in preliminary figures. It's a remarkable difference from the same time last year, when HP first captured the top spot from Dell with a 16.5 percent market share, versus 16.3 percent. Dell has suffered from a host of troubles over the past two years, including financial restatements and leadership changes. But its main problem has been a failure to grow as fast as rivals despite strong global PC market growth. The company's quarterly earnings conference highlighted this issue. Despite strong revenue growth, rising costs cut into profits and the company warned that future earnings could be hurt by cautious PC buying among financial customers. HP has surged under fresh leadership from CEO Mark Hurd. The company's third quarter PC shipments grew 32.7 percent compared to last year to 13.1 million units, iSuppli said. Dell's increased just 1.5 percent to 9.9 million. Acer added to Dell's woes in the quarter, snatching away the second place global ranking in laptop PCs on strong shipment growth. The Taiwanese company gauged the strongest growth among all top PC vendors in the third quarter, up 68.8 percent year-on-year, mainly due to strong notebook PC sales.
Visit www.isuppli.com.
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RFID

Lagassé Group presents at RFID show
Lagassé Group demonstrated its latest innovative services and RFID products, including active tags with temperature and movement detectors, at the RFID Show in Paris, France.  These new services deliver real time alerts and reporting on location through a web based monitoring system.  In addition, enhanced voice conferencing / messaging services for emergency/crisis situations were demonstrated.  Lagassé Group delivers global secure radio and telecommunications products with top-tier relationships with the world’s largest communication equipment groups.
Visit www.lc-i.com or www.rfid-show.com.
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Storage

RELDATA expands consolidated storage options
RELDATA announced the 9240 SAS/SATA Unified Storage System, expanding customer storage options while delivering unrivaled value in the enterprise iSCSI storage market. This announcement closely follows RELDATA’s release of its 10 GbE 92 40 Unified Storage Gateway. RELDATA’s Unified Storage System delivers integrated iSCSI SAN, NAS and WAN replication functions on a single virtualized platform that delivers best-in-class performance. Customers can independently scale disk storage capacity, SAN/NAS/WAN replication storage services, and network performance without application disruption. RELDATA’s new iSCSI storage system combines its 9000 Series Unified Storage Gateway with Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) and Serial ATA (SATA) disk storage, providing customers with a seamless, integrated solution that continues RELDATA’s unrivaled record of delivering performance that matches the NetApp FAS 6070 at half the price. International Data Corp. projects that SAS drives will overtake FC drives by 2009, with demand for SAS drives showing a 150% increase over the next two years. IDC expects iSCSI SAN revenue to grow at 20 times the rate of FC SAN through 2011.
Visit www.RELDATA.com.


Atempo extends Time Navigator support to Mac OS X Leopard
Atempo, Inc. announced that it has extended support of its award-winning Time Navigator backup and recovery software to include Mac OS X Leopard. Time Navigator’s compatibility with Apple’s latest operating system continues Atempo’s dedication to providing enterprise-class data protection to data-intensive businesses that depend on Mac-based servers and computers. Time Navigator for Mac OS X preserves high-value data through its unique time-based restoration process and includes features customized for the Mac experience. With its native Mac OS X graphical user interface and dedicated widget, Time Navigator simplifies the critical process of managing data across multiple levels of storage media. The software is a natural complement to heterogeneous storage environments and is highly scalable to meet the needs and challenges of organizations of any size.
Visit www.atempo.com.
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