Cisco Announce Ten Thousandth Blade Server Customer
Earlier this month, communication technology giant Cisco released a statement stating it had acquired its 10,000th server customer. Since launching into the server market nearly three years ago, the company has faced intense scrutiny and pressure from competitors and industry commentators and the announcement has been regarded by some as a chance for Cisco to brag about the growth of the server area of the business and who its customers are.
Cisco entered the server industry in March 2009, with the introduction of the UCS B Series of Blade servers and the release of the C Series in June. The servers Cisco manufacture boast 10 Gigabit Ethernet networking, which enables servers to link to other servers as well as external storage; a system management tool- UCS Manager- that is fully integrated and features hypervisor capability; and virtualised I/O via UCS systems to manage the server.
When Cisco entered the server market, server and storage networking were coming together. Established server makers such as IBM and Fujitsu sold data centre switches with their server cabinet and server hardware that they either made, or purchased wholesale and rebranded and were searching for marketing opportunities to increase their market share. This convergence of server technology made Cisco’s entry inevitable.
It is also arguable that Cisco’s entry into the server market caused other manufacturers of tier one servers to speed up work on networking plans. It is for this reason that industry experts believe that Cisco’s embracing of server production has been a benefit to the industry as a whole, even if the server wing of the business is yet to prove itself profitable financially and could have effected its networking wing, as companies that were previously partners became competitors.
Cisco sold almost 40,000 blade or rack-mounted servers in the third quarter of 2011, the latest that sales figures are available for. The company’s marketing manager for unified computing, Todd Brannon stated that the UCS server side of the business was generating orders at the end of 2011 that if calculated over the course of a year would total $1.1bn.
The rate at which Cisco added customers during the Spring and Summer of 2011 was impressive and although the numbers fell slightly in the Autumn, it is worth remembering that Cisco has existing relationships with a large number of the top businesses around the world that use large data centres. Industry commentators state that even if the company does not sell a single server to a small to medium enterprise (SME), the total market for Cisco servers would remain extensive and would not affect sales for server manufacturers like Hewlett Packard, Fujitsu or IBM or other computer parts UK companies.
Microbite Anticipate UK Computer Parts Sales Following Intel ‘Sandy Bridge’ Announcement
Processor producing giant Intel has recently announced an extension to its ‘Sandy Bridge’ line. With price cuts to the existing range alongside the introduction of 16 new designs, Intel could be throwing spares sourcing company Microbite an inventorial bone.
Since the release of the first ‘Sandy Bridge’-based processors on January 9th 2011, Intel’s new processor microarchitecture has become more competitive. Now that the range is becoming more affordable, Microbite hopes to benefit from an influx of second-hand processors appearing in the computer parts UK market as consumers upgrade to newer Intel parts.
Intel will follow this further expansion into the budget market with a new extreme performance offering towards the end of the fourth quarter. The i7 will soon be joined by the i7 Extreme at the top-end of the Intel ‘Sandy Bridge’ range. The specification-savvy consumer will be drooling at the thought of 12 Mb of cache, 6 cores, 12 threads, and a clock speed of 3.46 GHz. So what do these impressive sounding numbers mean? Simply put, the new i7 Extreme will be amongst the most capable multitasking processors in the world aimed at the home enthusiast.
Following initial controversy surrounding a flawed chipset at the point of release, ‘Sandy Bridge’-based processors have gone on to perform reasonably well. However with this drop in prices, Microbite anticipate that many users with older PCs lacking in the graphics department will be persuaded to upgrade by a combination of low pricing and on-board graphics processing. Whilst this would boost Intel’s sales figures, it would also boost processor resale figures and increase the revenue generated by Microbite.
Analysts have argued that the greatest profit making potential for processors incorporating graphics processing could be in the downsized computer market. In the quest for ever-smaller computers, dedicated graphics cards have proved one of the greatest obstacles. As a general rule of thumb, the latest and greatest graphics cards occupy a large volume of space inside computer cases and are often accompanied by heavyweight cooling systems due to their propensity for generating heat. Unlike in a server case, the case of a notebook or handheld computer does not have this space to spare.
As demand increases for more portable computers, the demand will increase for better processor multitasking. In terms of gaming capability, desktop and laptop PCs have struggled to compete with the burgeoning console market. Part of the problem lies in the comparatively cumbersome separation of processing functions within a typical PC. This makes parts less well integrated and less cost effective to produce, translating into higher prices for the consumer.
Nevertheless Microbite will continue to thrive selling replacement parts. You can buy server accessories and everything but the kitchen sink in confidence from this reputable supplier.
About Microbite:
Parts sourcing company Microbite have the answer to all your computer parts uk needs. You can buy server accessories, parts and even your server case from their comprehensive catalogue.