Some firm named Unisys does something

Unisys. Unisys. Unisys. No, we can't quite rememb . . . Oh, that's right - the company that sells hardware and services.

Some of you might not be old enough to remember Unisys, but that's okay because there's a new Unisys for you to explore. Where the old Unisys sold hulking servers and offered services, the new Unisys sells hulking servers and offers services but does so flaunting fresh "Real-Time Infrastructure" jargon.

Normally, we'd explain the Real-Time Infrastructure and Unisys' glossy new strategy in rich detail. Sadly, the company did not afford us an opportunity to do so. A couple of weeks ago, a Unisys public relations specialist came to us offering a meeting to fill in the gaps - and there are many - around today's grand unveiling. We agreed to the meeting only to be told a short time later that, in actual fact, the executives' schedules were so full that Unisys would have no time over 14 days to speak with The Register.

Surely, this had nothing to do with the executives realizing we'd refuse the offer to serve as an unadulterated channel, moving marketing spew directly from their mouths to your eyes. "Not at all!" we were told.

Phew.

Well, we're far too mature and civilized to let a cold shoulder influence our coverage, so here's a recap of the drivel Unisys dangled.

For one, the company now offers something called the Unisys Infrastructure Management Suite. Apparently, this software relies on "leading-edge middleware" from both Unisys and partners. The software handles a wide variety of tasks, including the installation and management of virtual servers, disaster recovery and test and development processes.

We're told the suite also covers "servers as a utility", which Unisys explains as "a custom solution leveraging Unisys outsourcing services expertise, which enables flexible provisioning of servers to support business-critical applications". And you'll find data center migration help which Unisys describes as "another custom solution, which draws on Unisys best practices and services to help clients more efficiently create data centers or transition to new ones."

And these people think they can do without our help?

While all of the major hardware players have similar offerings, Unisys is claiming an edge in that it's "neutral" as to what operating systems, hardware or applications customers want to use in their data centers. Hardly a novel pitch.

In addition, Unisys wants you to see it more as a services than a hardware company these days, even though it still covers both fronts.

And so we find the services company announcing that its ES5000 blade servers should arrive by May. Funny enough, you can stick 16 blades in a 10U chassis, which is what Dell and HP offer.

In addition, Unisys has outfitted the mid-range ES3000 servers with fresh Xeon chips from Intel. In the second quarter of this year, Unisys will add to the party by rolling out new high-end ES7000 systems based on a collaboration with NEC. ®