Nvidia - which Intel might say discounts the processor - has gone into competition against Intel and its tiny Atom MPU with a non-x86 family of processors called Tegra described as the first single-chip computer capable of accessing rich high-definition applications and the Internet on small pocket devices, what Intel calls MIDs.

Intel has been fined $25.4 million by South Korean regulators for abusing its dominant position and discounting its microprocessors, thereby freezing AMD out of the market. The charges relate specifically to $37 million in rebates awarded to Samsung and Trigem between 2002 and 2005 in exchange for not buying chips from AMD. By 2005 Intel owned over 90% of the Korean market and the authorities claim AMD couldn?t have competed even if its chips were free.

Intel hit Computex Tuesday with enough design-wins in hand to put its newfangled netbook-, nettop- and MID-bound Atom chips in short supply at least for the next six-eight weeks, it said. The manufacturing giant confessed last week to hiccups with its new more conventional laptop-bound Centrino 2 chips and chipset that will delay volume production until August.

Zmanda, the open source backup and recovery folks, says it's integrated NetApp's Snapshot technology with its own Recovery Manager for MySQL. It's supposed to translate into continuous data protection for mission-critical MySQL databases. With Snapshot, administrators can create point-in-time copies of file systems for granular recovery.

HP Tuesday named Don Grantham, Sun's global sales and service boss, and an ex-IBMer, its chief sales officer responsible for enterprise accounts and public sector sales as well as sales to the communications, media and entertainment, financial and manufacturing and distribution industries. He will report to Ann Livermore, head of HP's Technology Solutions Group, and run worldwide alliance sales, sales compensation, global pre-sales, sales support, sales operations and go-to-market 'effectiveness.'

There is a lot of hype today about server virtualization. You wouldn't know it, but the reality is the technology is still only deployed on about 6-8 percent of the installed x86 server base worldwide. To take this penetration rate to a more meaningful level requires that we in the industry find a way to gain adoption in the small and medium-sized enterprises. To date, these organizations have been largely shut out of the market by the high cost and complexity of available solutions.

Ceedo announced Ceedo Enterprise, a complete virtualization product that allows IT administrators to create, deploy and remotely manage desktop workspace environments enabling a number of cost-effective scenarios including: application portability, remote management, business continuity and disaster recovery.

rPath announced that the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) have been using rBuilder to deliver virtual appliances to both scientists' desktops and computational clouds. The use of rBuilder in these environments reduces the effort required to support users and allows researchers to take advantage of underutilized computational resources.

GRM announced that they have instituted the next step in their company-wide green initiative - virtualization of their information management system. The data center of large corporations is one of the leading contributors to a company's carbon footprint, and GRM has decided that virtualizing their server infrastructure is a crucial part of the transition to green.

Xenocode's Virtual Application Studio allows IT professionals to convert their existing Windows, .NET, and Java-based applications into virtualized applications ready for instant deployment using the Xenocode Virtual OS.

Tripwire announced the availability of Tripwire ConfigCheck, a free utility that assesses configuration settings for the VMware ESX hypervisor and recommends steps to take to ensure even greater security. Tripwire ConfigCheck provides an immediate assessment of the configurations of a VMware ESX hypervisor, comparing them against VMware hardening security guidelines, which are best practice recommendations for optimal security in virtual environments, and then providing remediation instructions if any are needed. With Tripwire ConfigCheck customers gain immediate visibility into risks that might exist in their virtual environment due to misconfiguration and fixes any improper settings that could present future risk.

Ceedo Personal enables you to create a portable virtual desktop comprising of your favorite Windows applications, carry it with you on a USB flash drive, portable hard drive, iPod or any other on any portable storage gadget, and run it on any PC without installation.

Virtualization is quickly becoming a staple technology for enterprise IT. The theme of this November's 4th International Virtualization Conference & Expo is 'The Next Generation of Virtualization.' The Call for Papers, which is now open, welcomes submissions from exceptional speakers with high-quality use cases not only of how virtualization maximizes the use of resources and thus saves companies money, but also of how it is fundamentally altering the way that businesses run IT.

VMware has cozied up with ASUS, Gigabyte, Inventec and Tyan to get more customers for its brand of virtualization by certifying the ODMs one-, two- and four-socket servers as well as their blade servers. It's already got a deal with Supermicro. The vendors are certifying their systems for the VMware ESX and Infrastructure 3-upgradeable ESXi hypervisor; certified systems expected to be available in Q3. It's supposed to make adoption easier for resellers and get VMware into SMBs.

SOA and Virtualization are viewed today as the ultimate IT power couple. They've been called two of today's hottest technologies: virtualization provides cost savings and flexibility, while a service-oriented architecture (SOA) affords application reuse and fast response to business needs.

Credit Suisse, the big broker and investment banker, has launched an independent company called DynamicOps LLC, quietly formed in January, to market a virtual machine management application called Virtual Resource Manager (VRM). It is funded by Credit Suisse's NEXT II venture group. Exactly how much is unclear. Credit Suisse says it first deployed a virtual infrastructure in 2005, and realized that while virtualization improved resource utilization and business agility, it also increased operational complexity.

The conference theme of the Virtualization Conference & Expo Europe, to be held in London, England, January 26-27, 2009, is 'Deploying Virtualization in the Enterprise.' The Call for Papers, which is now open, welcomes submissions from exceptional speakers with high-quality use cases not only of how virtualization maximizes the use of resources and thus saves companies money, but also of how it is fundamentally altering the way that businesses run IT.

Citrix CTO Simon Crosby, Red Hat CTO Brian Stevens, Egenera CTO Pete Manca are among the top industry executives joining Jeremy Geelan in the famous 4th Floor Reuters Studio overlooking Times Square for a special SYS-CON.TV 'Virtualization Power Panel' to be recorded on the eve of SYS-CON's 3rd International Virtualization Conference & Expo being held 23-24 June 2008 in New York City.

AMD has rethought its roadmap and, given its limited resources and near-death experience with Barcelona, it's scrubbing Montreal, the eight-core chip that was supposed to follow Shanghai, the chip after Barcelona, and substituting a six-core part code named Istanbul to be followed by a 12-core part called Magny-Cours. Speculation has also been rife this week that AMD would finally tease out its so-called asset-lite manufacturing plans, some kind of cost-saving outsourcing scheme, at its shareholders meeting Thursday, chatter that has flamed into speculation that it will break in two - a manufacturing business and a chip design and development operation.

From Application Virtualization to Xen, a round-up of the virtualization themes & topics being discussed in NYC June 23-24, 2008 by the world-class speaker faculty at the 3rd International Virtualization Conference & Expo being held by SYS-CON Events in The Roosevelt Hotel, in midtown Manhattan.

Conference in San Francisco. Dvorak held forth on a number of topics, including the new AMD/Intel lawsuit, the viability of Java and Sun, the value of (or lack thereof) of corporate PR, and whether or not a new book about Silicon Valley is really worth reading.

I've been a proponent of geotargeted cloud computing for a while (the ability to geographically target compute resources). The problem is for the most part there still really isn't any options outside of the US to do this. This type of Geopolitical computing may very well be one of the best opportunities for cloud computing in the future. (Security being the #1 issue.) Not only will cloud users be able to adjust their computing environment based on geographic demands, but also based on Geopolitical ones.

Defining what cloud computing is in itself a tough job, the lack of common cloud methodologies and best practices is making the job even harder. Trying to find experienced people with knowledge on how to build out a 30,000 machine cloud is nearly impossible, and finding someone who's deployed hundreds is proving to be almost as difficult.

Currently, an overwhelming majority of organizations are migrating and consolidating servers from physical to virtual environments. While the savings of the virtualized data center are extremely compelling, there is a new set of challenges that IT staffs didn't have to deal with in the physical world. One of the challenges is getting used to the fact that all hardware resources: CPU, memory, storage, and network utilization are shared between virtual machines. This means that applications and users can impact each other and therefore resource monitoring becomes extremely important. If you don?t closely monitor resource consumption by each virtual machine and simply keep adding more virtual machines without doing analysis on how this will impact all four core resources, the result will be bad performance and even system downtime. Ultimately, this means unhappy users, dissatisfied managers, and a negative impact on the virtualization project. So, you need to find a way to prevent this problem.

SYS-CON Events announced today that the Founder & CEO of FastScale, Lynn LeBlanc, will be giving a top breakout session at SYS-CON's 4th International Virtualization Conference & Expo in San Jose, CA (20-21 November, 2008).

IBM announced it will establish the first Cloud Computing Center for software companies in China, which will be situated at the new Wuxi Tai Hu New Town Science and Education Industrial Park in Wuxi, China. The center will offer emerging Chinese software companies the ability to tap into a virtual computing environment to support their development activities. It will be established through an agreement signed today between IBM and Wuxi Tai Lake Industry Investment and Development Company Limited.

IBM has released new software that allows data centers to benefit from so-called cloud computing, allowing them to scale more cost-effectively. The software is based on an updated version of IBM's Tivoli Provisioning Manager product that includes new automation features that remove much of the manual graft in data center management.

Virtualization is quickly becoming a staple technology for enterprise IT. The theme of this November's 4th International Virtualization Conference & Expo is 'The Next Generation of Virtualization.' The Call for Papers, which is now open, welcomes submissions from exceptional speakers with high-quality use cases not only of how virtualization maximizes the use of resources and thus saves companies money, but also of how it is fundamentally altering the way that businesses run IT.

Brian Stevens, the Chief Technology Officer and Vice President of Engineering of Red Hat, delivered his Virtualization Keynote 'The Future of the Virtual Enterprise' at SYS-CON's Virtualization Conference & Expo 2007 West in San Francisco. 'Virtualization is the hottest subject today,' said Stevens, an industry luminary, who is credited with having pioneered new technologies that contributed to the rise of Linux as an industry-standard operating platform.

Skytap is a provider of cloud-based virtualization solutions available as secure, on-demand services over the Web. Skytap solutions enable IT and development teams to develop, test, deploy and manage applications in a virtual environment, increasing their ability to respond to business needs and shorten time to market, while reducing overhead and cost. Skytap users have access to virtually unlimited computing capacity which can augment on-site infrastructure for short-term needs or eliminate the need for it entirely. Skytap's virtual infrastructure and software platform provides services such as virtual infrastructure provisioning, monitoring & management, security, remote access and collaboration, storage management, and reporting.

Some people may take offense to being told that their 'head is in the clouds,' but not Nirvanix CEO Patrick Harr. With his company serving as the premier 'Cloud Storage' platform provider, Harr is turning the phrase that suggests one is unrealistic or full of impractical ideas on its head and making it his personal mantra for a new way of thinking about data storage. When many first regarded Cloud Storage as being an unrealistic and impractical idea, Harr and his team of storage and networking veterans set out to build a global cluster of storage nodes that intelligently stores, delivers and processes requests across a highly scalable online storage platform.

DataCore announced that it has accepted a $30 million equity investment from Insight Venture Partners and Updata Partners. Insight Venture Partners is a private equity and venture capital firm focused on the global software and Internet industries. Updata Partners is an information technology-focused venture capital firm whose general partners have been active as investors and operators in the IT industry for more than two decades.

Virtual Cloud Computing represents the next wave of virtualization and offers significant market opportunities by providing a new, simpler, and much more pervasive platform for on-demand, desktop and application service delivery. While server-side virtualization helps enterprises optimize data center resources, the use of a universal dialtone technology offers a significantly larger market for desktop users in both commercial and consumer segments. The key to virtual cloud computing is in the universal dialtone which securely links users to desktop applications and content resources, on demand, via any device.

VMware unveiled a new integrated desktop solution offering superior performance, especially over wide area networks (WANs), that leverages VMware's Virtual Desktop Infrastructure platform with Sun Microsystems' Sun Ray Software and virtual display clients. Ideal for use with remote users, enterprise branch offices, and offshore developers, this solution beats the competition in performance and user experience, according to customers.

Xiotech announced Virtual View, a new add-on for its ICON Manager user interface that simplifies storage monitoring, management and provisioning tasks in virtual environments. Virtual View, designed for users of Xiotech's Emprise 7000 and Magnitude 3D 4000 storage systems, enables administrators to manage storage in their VMware infrastructure environments from a single interface. Users can have a global view of the three storage layers (array, VMware ESX and virtual machine) from a single console and then automate configuration across all layers. As a result, storage management becomes faster and easier with less risk of misconfigurations.

Credit Suisse announced that it is launching an independent company to market an innovative virtual machine management application. The company, DynamicOps, formed in January, 2008, is funded by Credit Suisse?s NEXT II venture group and is located in Burlington, Massachusetts. Credit Suisse first deployed a virtual infrastructure in 2005, and realized that while virtualization improved resource utilization and business agility, it also increased operational complexity.

VMware announced new relationships with original design manufacturers (ODMs) ASUS, Gigabyte, Inventec and Tyan, adding to VMware's current relationship with Supermicro announced in February 2008. The relationships will enable channel partners and system builders worldwide to make virtualization available to a broader range of customers by certifying a wide range of one-, two- and four-socket server systems as well as blade servers for the VMware virtualization platform.

InstallFree has reached an agreement with CDG Europe to distribute its products in the UK and across Europe. The arrangement expands CDG Europe's portfolio into the developing application and desktop virtualization space, which helps IT directors lower total cost of ownership, improve operational efficiency and increase end-user productivity. InstallFree benefits from CDG Europe's pan- European network, large reseller base and value added services.

Wyse Technology announced its support for Citrix XenDesktop desktop delivery solution across all Wyse product lines. Citrix XenDesktop is a desktop delivery solution that allows companies to virtualize Microsoft Windows desktops in the datacenter and deliver them on-demand to workers in any location. Wyse's support of XenDesktop will optimize high-speed application delivery across a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI).

2X and Virtual Iron announced a strategic alliance to provide a complete Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) and Application Publishing Solution. Desktop computing makes up a large part of the enterprise computing infrastructure today. As distributed end points, desktops are among the most difficult to secure, manage and maintain. Refresh cycles, compliance, ongoing maintenance and user support are huge undertakings. These challenges put IT resources under tremendous pressure and significantly increase total cost of ownership. The 2X / Virtual Iron virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) solution hosts individual Windows desktop PCs inside virtual machines running on servers in the data center.