ICC 4 IT Blog

IDC reported that fourth-quarter factory revenue declined 14% in the worldwide server market on a year-over-year basis. All of the top five server vendors saw declines in their quarterly and annual server revenue, the first time since the first quarter of 2002. The research firm said that IBM, which held onto its number 1 spot in the worldwide server systems market with a 36.3% market share in factory revenue, recorded a 15% decline in its revenue to $4.9 billion. Although IBM experienced significant weakness in System x, demand for its power-based systems improved in the quarter. HP, which maintained the number 2 spot with a revenue market share of 29%, reported fourth-quarter factory revenues of $3.91 billion, a 10.1% decline from last year. According to IDC, HP was helped by a relatively strong October during its fiscal year end. Dell posted quarterly factory revenues of $1.42 billion, down 9.9% from $1.58 billion in the prior-year quarter. Dell maintained third place with a factory revenue market share of 10.6%. Sun Microsystems’ fourth-quarter factory revenue was $1.25 billion, a decline of 14.1% from $1.46 billion in the same quarter last year. Sun’s factory revenue market share was 9.3% for the quarter.

HP and Sun Microsystems Inc. have just announced a multi-year partnership agreement that allows HP to distribute and support Sun’s Solaris 10 operating system on the HP ProLiant and blade system platforms. Under the terms of the agreement Sun becomes a strategic HP ProLiant OS distribution partner, with Solaris now appearing on the line up of key operating systems for the HP ProLiant. The new agreement sets a course for the companies to work together to expand demand for Solaris and OpenSolaris within the HP ProLiant server family.

The website is currently undergoing some quite major changes which we are implimenting while it is still ‘live’.  Most of the functionality will still be available throughout this process, but we apologise for any speed  or ‘dead link’ issues you might experience while this work takes place.

Everything should be completed within the next 48 hours. Thank you for your patience.

I.C.C. Web Development.

I.C.C. would like to wish all its customers a very Happy Christmas and a Prosperous New Year.

Our opening times for this period are as follows:

Tuesday, 23^rd December             -           9am – 1pm

Christmas Eve                           -           closed

I.C.C. will then be closed for the seasonal period and will reopen Monday, 5^th January 2009.

For any urgent sales enquiries, please email your account manager.

Maintenance customers can still log calls either through the main I.C.C. phone number or via the HelpDesk portal as normal.

Thank you for your business and support throughout 2008!

ICC is pleased to announce that we have just secured a 24 hour contract for one of Europe’s largest Telecommunications companies, offering full support for their Alphaserver GS1280 platform, these machine’s are located oversea’s and has enabled us to expand our presence further into Europe outside of the British Isle’s. Original tenders for the contract took place in early 2006, and we were awarded the contract over another three major service provider’s. “obtaining this contract once more adds confidence to exisiting and future clients, who are looking for alternative young vibrant support organisations” commented MD Leon Wheeler.

Over the last 3 months ICC commissioned an independent market research company to carry out a survey to over 25,000 companies from large corporates to SME’s including existing clients to see what customers looked for in their IT supplier. This survey was carried out in order for us to review our products and services to ensure we were still meeting customers expectations. After obtaining all the information from our customers we are pleased to be able to release the results from this survey that shows that 92% of all customers new and old find that dealing with ICC meets and exceeds all there requirements over other Suppliers.

To see the full survey results please click here.

HP enhances key attributes of OpenVMS with version 8.3 supporting the latest line of HP Integrity servers and AlphaServer systems. Now, you can achieve higher levels of performance and price/performance.

OpenVMS version 8.3 delivers even greater flexibility and investment protection along with lower total cost of ownership (TCO) and additional virtualization capabilities for HP Integrity servers. New clustering and data-shadowing functions further increase performance levels in disaster-tolerant environments, and additional security capabilities enhance the OpenVMS reputation for secure, rapid application delivery.

With OpenVMS version 8.3, you can choose to deploy HP Integrity servers as your business needs require. The mixed architecture clusters of Integrity servers and AlphaServer systems are fully supported, promoting the integration of HP Integrity servers into an OpenVMS environment at the pace directed by your business needs.

Licensing and service plans for OpenVMS on HP Integrity servers offer reduced complexity, increased cost-effectiveness, and greater flexibility. OpenVMS version 8.3 also supports the full line of HP AlphaServer systems.

Today, more than 1,000 applications are, or will soon be, available on OpenVMS on HP Integrity servers. And the number of available applications is continually growing. The enthusiastic base of HP OpenVMS partners are ready to help you deploy the applications that keep your business running smoothly.

HP OpenVMS is the operating environment of choice for many of the world’s most demanding enterprises because it delivers these no-compromise attributes every day, year after year:

• Up to 100% application availability
• Unyielding security
• Robust disaster tolerance
• Scalability to millions of users
• Steadfast reliability
• Ease of management
• Exceptional price/performance

Hewlett-Packlard has introduced a new version of the HP-UX 11i operating system and a new range of HP Integrity servers to help make mission-critical virtualisation practical for businesses of all sizes.

The latest release of HP’s Unix operating environment, HP-UX 11i v3, makes virtualisation easier to deploy and delivers mission-critical virtualisation by combining virtualisation and mainframe-class availability, said HP. Also, with HP-UX 11i v3, important applications, including business intelligence and datawarehousing, are now simpler to secure and manage.

Additionally, HP has strengthened its HP Integrity server line-up with a model for BladeSystem c-Class environments and a new rack-optimised unit, the Integrity rx2660 entry-class server.
The HP Integrity BL860c Server Blade is the first Integrity model designed for the HP BladeSystem c-Class portfolio, HP’s new blade architecture. And the HP Integrity rx2660 is the lowest-priced Integrity rack-mount server and the most flexible and versatile unit in its Unix server class, said HP.

HP claimed the rx2660 beat similar entry-level offerings from Sun Microsystems on performance when it came to Java application and Java business workloads.
A base configuration of the HP Integrity BL860c Server Blade has a starting US list price of $3,827 (£2,015) and is expected to begin shipping in March. A base configuration of the HP Integrity rx2660 entry-class server has a starting US list price of $4,931 (£2,600) and is shipping now.

ICC are pleased to announce that we are now authorised resellers of SUMO thin client products.
Over the last few years we have seen many of our clients moving away from the traditional “dumb terminal” and moving towards windows based terminals. It was therefore necessary for us to choose a product that we believe was a suitable alternative to the terminal products we had sold in the past and after reviewing what manufacturers were offering we have chosen to use SUMO as our preferred and approved product.
Please see our thin client page for more details of SUMO products

ICC is pleased to announce that they have secured yet another service contract for one of the worlds largest pharmaceutical research companies namely Aptuit at their Edinburgh based site. The service support contract chosen by Aptuit covers their development Alphaserver Cluster.

ICC will be supporting Aptuit 24 hours a day 365 days a year with a 4 hour response level. “securing this contract once again adds another high profile client to our ever increasing support client list, our heavy investment into this area of our business with personnel and in-house facilities, ensures that any future customer, or current customer can be assured they are receiving market leading support without the the usual heavy costs associated with the manufacturers maintenance agreement that so many companies choose to adopt”

“At ICC we are trying to re-educate clients to realise that sticking with the manufacturers for support is not always the most reliable and cost effective way to run their I. T. platform, as companies have realised over the last few years that it is not always the best option to buy equipment direct from the manufacturer, we are confident that with the right attributed and procedures in place we can steer our clients in the direction of using our services, and increasing their cover but also reducing their annual costs”