HP Unveils New Unix Server, ‘Utility-Based’ Pricing System

Hewlett-Packard Co. on Tuesday unveiled a new mainframe-class Unix server--a refrigerator-size computer designed to support “dot-coms,” Web service providers and other data-intensive businesses.

The Palo Alto-based computer maker said its HP-900 Superdome minimizes system downtime through increased component backups, a wider range of easily changeable components and built-in error-correction capabilities.

“An always-on infrastructure is a requirement of the Internet Age,” said HP Chief Executive Carly Fiorina, citing a Lloyds of London estimate that $20 billion was lost to computer outages and hackers in 1999. “Downtime costs money.”

HP said it will also offer a new “utility-based” pricing system, which allows a business to pay for as much computing power as it uses--similar to the way it would pay an electricity or water bill.

“Businesses pay for only the server capacity they need--no more, no less,” said Fiorina.

The utility-like pricing is part of an overall strategy to attract customers whose needs for capacity are constantly changing. Some 95% of the thousands of customers who use HP’s capacity-on-demand program--which allows companies to quickly expand computing power as their needs grow--are interested in the utility-based pricing, executives said.

The new server is designed to support its own Unix operating systems, Microsoft Corp.’s Windows NT and the Linux alternative operating system simultaneously.

The system is designed to accommodate new Intel Corp. IA-64 chips.

Duane Zitzner, president of HP’s computing systems group, said Superdome will boost the computer maker’s earnings and profit margins beginning in the first fiscal quarter ending in January.

Superdome can be configured with as many as 64 processors and 256 gigabytes of memory, Zitzner said.

He said the ability to partition the computer, using blocks of computing power for various uses, would help distinguish the HP server from computers sold by server-market leader Sun Microsystems Inc. and IBM Corp., the world’s largest computer maker.

The server, priced starting at about $400,000, begins shipping in volume in December, executives said.

Hewlett-Packard shares were down $1.44 to close at $112.56 on the New York Stock Exchange, where they have been under pressure since HP’s talks to acquire the consulting arm of PricewaterhouseCoopers came to light.