Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/2002/09/23/hp_blade_sales_taking_off/

HP blade sales ‘taking off like a rocket’

Fireworks for fast growing server category

By John Leyden

Posted in Systems, 23rd September 2002 13:04 GMT

HP reports blade server sales are "taking off like a rocket", with 1,800 units shifted a month.

The company says is well ahead of its competitors, citing analyst estimates of 54.8 per cent market share of this emerging server segment.

Which is nice. But don't read too much into the results just yet - it's rarely safe to name the winner of a marathon in the first mile. But it is reasonably safe to assume that tougher competition is on its way from IBM and Dell.

Analysts firm Giga for example has heaped praise on IBM's blade server plans; HP's offerings so far have met with criticisms that its blade servers are so loosely packed they scarcely merit the term blade. Higher density and multi-processor blades from HP are expected.

HP was the first major vendor to challenge start ups such as RLX Technologies in the blade server market, positioning blades as a platform to run standard applications - not just for Web hosting. The company moved to the second phase of blades in August when it became the first major vendor to bring multi-processor blades to enterprise customers.

HP offers a blade server product ranging from ProLiant BL e-Class low-voltage blades to more advanced ProLiant BL p-Class dual- and, currently in development, four-processor performance blades for mid-tier and back-end applications. ®

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