HP says NT not robust enough for new L-boxes

The NT operating system is not suitable for HP's entry level L-Series machines, which the company introduces today. Instead, HP will use its own flavour of Unix for the L1000 and 2000 boxes, aimed at the entry level market. Speculation is mounting that HP's CEO, Carla Fiorina, will make the split official. She will host a conference call to be held in the US tomorrow. Janice Chaffin, GM of HP's business critical unit, said: "We see NT as quite successful in more collaborative applications. NT does not have the same robustness as HP/UX." HP claims that its L1000 and L2000 boxes, which will initially ship with PA-RISC and later IA-64 chips, will help it capture the midrange market. Chaffin said that while there was no doubt that HP has the largest market share in the enterprise on Unix boxes, it would pursue an "aggressive" campaign to wrest market share from competitors including Sun, Compaq and IBM in the midrange. The L1000, which comes in a two way configuration, is upgradeable to the four way L2000. HP claims that the range out-performs offering from Sun on both price and performance. The collaboration HP has with Puffin to port Linux to the PA-RISC platform will bear fruit early next year, HP said. At the same time, it is helping to port Linux to the IA-64 platform. ®