AC/DC Server Maker Sashays Into ...

Computerworld - ... fourth place on IDC's list of leading Intel server vendors, in large part by replacing computers from Sun Microsystems. Trailing Dell, Hewlett-Packard and IBM doesn't faze Tom Barton, CEO of San Jose-based Rackable Systems Inc., which he says is "ahead of plan" to achieve 110% revenue growth this year. Granted, we're talking about racking up enough orders to hit $100 million, roughly what IBM rakes in over three business days. Nonetheless, the company's innovative packaging of the otherwise commodity 1U (1.75-in. high) servers has led to sales that average 98 systems, or about $250,000, per deal. One clever distinction is that Rackable's servers can take direct current (DC), um, directly without having to step alternating current (AC) through power-supply conversion. DC power can reach 93% efficiency, while AC barely tops a sloppy 67%. That difference saves on wattage consumed, reducing costs as well as heat-dissipation problems. You can also double the number of servers on a single rung in your rack because the company uses its patented half-depth size. Because Rackable has targeted Sun users and because 80% of its servers ship with Linux, the company's systems administration tools have that user-hostile interface Unix lovers love: the command line. None of those girlie Windows-like wizard tools. Coming later this year from Rackable will be iSCSI storage options, improved remote management and even better DC hardware, Barton claims. Rackable is also wooing high-end Sun resellers, which Barton says are "desperate" to push an Intel line of machines to their Fortune 500 users. More woes for poor Sun.
• And a woe for Microsoft is in order, too, if you believe WebMethods Inc.'s chief technology officer. Graham Glass predicts that Eclipse will overtake Microsoft's Visual Studio .Net as the No. 1 development framework. "Eclipse will have more people building things than Visual Studio," he forecasts. Glass argues that because of the breadth of corporate and academic contributors to Eclipse, as well as its open-source nature vs. Microsoft's single-company, proprietary approach, Visual Studio is destined to be an also-ran, especially for corporate software creators. Graham is also optimistic about application integration and business-process automation projects, as long as you use Web services. "The time is ripe now to make programs out of [Web services] parts," he says. Not surprisingly, he wants you to build these programs with Fabric, Fairfax, Va.-based WebMethods' second-generation container for those parts. Fabric applies a set of uniform services for security, fail-over, publish, subscribe and other common attributes of a Web services application. Version 2 of Fabric is