Posted 03/11/10 at 07:22:24 AM by Paul Lilly

Popular online computer parts vendor Newegg this week gave one of its suppliers, IPEX, the boot. The reason, says Newegg, is that IPEX was the one who supplied the vendor with fake Core i7 chips.

"Initial information we received from our supplier, IPEX, stated that they had mistakenly shipped us 'demo units.' We have since come to discover that the CPUs were counterfeit and are terminating our relationship with this supplier," Newegg said in a statement.

Initial reports had pegged D&H Distributing as the culprit, but the supplier has since been cleared of any wrongdoing.

"Contrary to any speculation, D&H Distributing is not the vendor that supplied us with the Intel Core i7 920 CPUs in question," Newegg added.

Fake CPUs weren't terribly difficult to spot. There were several misspelled words on the retail packaging, including a sticker that spelled "socket" as "sochet," eWeek.com reports. In some cases, the user manual inside the box was blank.

As for customers who were affected, Newegg said it is sending out replacement chips.

See here for an unboxing video of one of the counterfeit chips.

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Posted 03/11/10 at 07:22:21 AM by Paul Lilly

What a difference an OS makes. Whereas those in charge of IT took a very cautious approach to Vista, Windows 7 is enjoying a much warmer reception and more rapid adoption rate.

"We have 50 percent of our users, that's 2,500 machines, deployed on Windows 7 in 2010," said Jim Thomas, CIO at Pella.

By the end of next year, Thomas says that number will likely rise to 90 percent. That's quite the contrast to Vista, in which some 80 percent of IT organizations shunned, according to Gartner.

There are big benefits to be had in moving to Windows 7, suggests Thomas, who says that upgrading from Windows XP to Windows 7 has resulted in a 80 percent reduction in the number of system images he'll need.

"It has to do with drivers and Windows 7 being able to understand and adapt to them versus having a specific image built," Thomas explained.

IT execs are also drawn to Windows 7's faster boot times, though the redesigned task bar can go either way, depending on who you ask.

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Posted 03/11/10 at 07:22:19 AM by Paul Lilly

Want to make waves in the mobile market? Slap a Core i7 Extreme Edition processor into a 15.6-inch chassis and call it the "world's most powerful" mobile workstation in its size class.

That's exactly what Dell has done with its just-announced Precision M4500. In addition to the super fast processor, the M4500 also boasts Nvidia Quadro FX 1800M graphics, an optional SSD MiniCard (another first for 15.6-inch mobile workstations), an optional HD+ sRGB LED screen, optional 3MP camera, and support for 32-bit and 74-bit versions of Microsoft Windows 7, Vista, and XP, as well as Red Hat Linux 5.3 64-bit support.

"The Dell Precision M4500 establishes new heights for performance and mobility for a workstation," said Greg Weir, senior manager, Dell Precision workstations. "This system provides the freedom to discover, create and imagine on your terms, wherever creativity takes you. Top that off with the assurance that you are backed by our robust ‘eco system’ of ISV partners and our ability to deliver the application performance you need to be productive…now that’s getting it done!"

No word yet on price or availability.

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Posted 03/10/10 at 07:25:24 AM by Paul Lilly

In the highly competitive enterprise storage sector, IBM this week had reason to celebrate, saying it achieved the highest growth among the top three storage vendors.

According to a market share report by IDC, IBM's external disk storage systems revenue grew by 9 percent year-over-year during the fourth quarter of 2009, putting the company's growth rate well ahead of the competition. By contrast, EMC stayed relatively flat with a 0.7 percent decline, while Hewlett Packard's revenue took a backwards slide to the tune of 7.3 percent during the same quarter.

Big Blue also noted gains in the Windows and Linux OS segments in 2009, boasting a 24 percent increase in Linux storage. What makes this particularly noteworthy is that the overall Linux storage market was down 4 percent.

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Posted 03/10/10 at 07:25:21 AM by Paul Lilly

Networking specialist Cisco on Tuesday announced what it claims is a "major advancement in Internet networking" in its CRS-3 Carrier Routing System (CRS).

"With more than 12 times the traffic capacity of the nearest competing system, the Cisco CRS-3 is designed to transform the broadband communication and entertainment industry by accelerating the delivery of compelling new experiences for consumers, new revenue opportunities for service providers, and new ways to collaborate in the workplace," Cisco said.

Sound pretty ambitious, and Cisco has the numbers to match. The CRS-3 delivers up to 322Tbps (that's Terabits per second), which Cisco says is enough to enable the entire printed collection of the Library of Congress to be downloaded in just over one second. It's also more than triple the capacity of the 92Tbps CRS-1, and 12 times the capacity of any other core router in the industry.

"The next generation Internet is upon us and we are confident that the Cisco CRS-3 will play a crucial role as service providers like AT&T deliver an exciting, new array of video, mobile, data center, and cloud services," said Pankaj Patel, senior VP and GM, Service Provider Business, Cisco.

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Posted 03/10/10 at 07:25:19 AM by Paul Lilly

Should your IT department consider switching to Macs? Perhaps, if the only criteria is the cost of management. That's because according to a new survey by the Enterprise Desktop Alliance, IT admins feel that Macs have lower management costs than PCs.

The survey pinged 260 IT admins from large organizations with both Macs and PCs, and in some categories -- such as troubleshooting, user training, and help desk calls -- three times as many respondents said that Macs are easier on the wallet to manage.

"Administrators in organizations that have both Mac and PC platforms have the experience to determine whether managing Macs is less expensive," said T. Reid Lewis, CEO of Group Logic, and president of the Enterprise Desktop Alliance. "The members of the Enterprise Desktop Alliance provide products and services that make deployment and management of Macs easier to do."

Perhaps most surprising is that the respondents rated every category in the Macs' favor, including system configuration. You can read the full survey results here (PDF).

Are you buying the survey results? Hit the jump and sound off!

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Posted 03/09/10 at 07:36:09 AM by Paul Lilly

QNAP this week expanded its Business Series Turbo NAS lineup with a pair of new 1u rack-mounted- 4-drive models, the TS-459U-RP and TS-459U-SP.

Both new models offer up to 8TB of storage (using 2TB drives) and have been certified as compatible with VMware's vSphere4 (ESX 4.0) virtualization platform, QNAP said.

"QNAP's commitment to delivering SMB, Corporate, and entry-level Enterprise customers exactly what they need, and nothing they do not shine through with the TS-459U-SP and TS-459U-RP models" said Laurent Cheng, Product Manager of QNAP Systems, Inc. "These new Business Series models provide businesses of all sizes a solid foundation for their network storage needs and a host of business-critical applications."

The RP model includes a redundant power supply, so should one of them fail, the other will keep things running with enough power to juice up the entire system. The SP model includes one power supply, but can be upgraded to the RP configuration.

Both models support RAID 0/1/5/5+ hot spare/6, and JOBD, 256-bit AES volume level encryption, 5 USB ports, 2 eSATA portas, DOM architecture with fail-safe dual OS, scheduled power on/off, Wake on LAN, and other goodies.

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Posted 03/09/10 at 07:36:07 AM by Paul Lilly

Good news for business owners chomping on the bit for Microsoft Office 2010. Come May 12, Microsoft will begin selling the full version of its upcoming productivity suite to businesses, about a month before the general public will be able to get their hands on a copy.

"For businesses, we will launch the 2010 set of products, including Office 2010, SharePoint 2010, Visio 2010, and Project 2010 worldwide on May 12," Jefon Fark, senior marketing manager for Microsoft Office, wrote in a blog post. "For consumers, Office 2010 will be available online and on retail shelves this June. Until then, you can get the Office 2010 beta."

All of the above mentioned products are on schedule to be RTM (released to manufacturing) in April, eWeek reports. And for those participating in Microsoft's Office 2010 Technology Guarantee, the blog outlines eligibility requirements, which entails purchasing and activating either Office 2007, or a new PC with Office 2007, between March 5 and September 30; either have or create a Windows Live ID; and redeem the actual guarantee right here.

More info here.

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