By Polly Raymond, 15 April 1999 00:20
NEWS Hewlett-Packard chiefs have unveiled a midrange Unix server which, they claim, offers a cheaper, more powerful ecommerce platform than any of its rivals. The N-Class Enterprise Server, launched in New York by HP chief executive, Lew Platt, is a lynchpin of the firm's e-services range, which competes with IBM's high-profile e-business campaign as well as similar efforts from Sun and Compaq. HP claimed the N-Class delivers twice the performance at half the price of equivalent products offered by IBM. Chief marketing officer, Nick Earle, produced figures that appeared to dwarf IBM server performances, and proclaimed: "The statistics show that IBM's true strategy is to drive up into services but, most importantly, simply not to compete on performance." Earle also took a sideswipe at another rival, Sun Microsystems. "Why is it that HP can announce the capability to outperform Sun - the company that invented Java - by six times on Java applications?" he said. According to many of those present, the high-profile launch marked a radical change in HP's attitude to ecommerce. A spokesman for one of HP's development partners, Internet service provider, PSINet, said: "A year ago, such a proactive move into ecommerce was unthinkable for HP. It would have been nicer if they'd listened to us at that time - they were very slow to recognise the opportunities, but they have caught up remarkably well." The HP 9000 N-Class Enterprise Server starts at $48,000.
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