POWER5 opens second IBM front against HP

On the last row of this month’s HP World conference Expo floor, a first-line offensive against HP’s servers was scheduled to be whirring up this month. IBM officials said they were going to supply Expo exhibitor PIR Group Inc. with the latest POWER5 iSeries server for the show. IBM started shipping the newest servers last month in earnest, a platform that could run Unix as well as the AS400-based applications in dynamic partitions. Now, IBM also rolled out p5 POWER5-based Unix servers, with the same partition capabilities. The vendor has begun to deliver what the HP 3000 customers were once promised from HP: RISC-based computing that cuts across multiple operating environments, including the vendor’s business-critical legacy OS.

HP hasn’t been happy about seeing direct rivals like IBM on the Interex show floor in years past, even going so far as to try to bar IBM from the LA conference facility in 2002. But as Interex steps toward independence of HP in its expos, the user group might have to embrace every available vendor opportunity for next year, even from HP’s competition.

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