With 140 breweries in more than 70 countries creating 200 million hector liters of beer and cider a year, including a large export business to the United States from the three breweries of its base in Holland, Heineken is one of the largest, worldwide brewery operations in the world. Its IT environment is demanding. It requires a 24/7 IT operation because brewing is a 24/7 operation. Shutting down a packaging line, for instance, costs the company 12,000€ an hour.  Heineken had been running on Hewlett-Packard blade servers and storage with 12 server rooms it wanted to combine into a single data center. It had virtualized its test environment with VMware but was constrained in its plans to  upgrade to Windows Server 2008 and to th

The debate around the FCC’s position in regulating net neutrality has been re-addressed, as the organization is requesting more information on whether or not regulations should even apply. This has been a topic of debate for quite some time, with the FCC’s position coming into question as Google and Verizon bring up the legal issues around net neutrality. From The New York Times, The agency is also asking for comments about one of the most hotly debated Internet regulatory issues: special services that offer to prioritize certain digital traffic for a fee. Those two issues were at the center of a recent proposal by Verizon and Google that generated widespread debate in the telecommunications and Internet communities.

New-generation development frameworks like VMforce (http://www.vmware.com/company/news/releases/vmforce.html), are changing the focus of software development and opening new opportunities for developers, says VMware CTO Steve Harrod. Interviewed on SiliconAngle.TV from VMworld2010 immediately after the announcement of VMforce, the new third-generation development platform being co-developed by VMware and salesforce.com, he said, “Developers want to write apps that reach the largest audience.” But this is becoming a challenge as we move from a Microsoft Windows dominated end-user environment to a multi-platform world with Apple, Android, Windows 7, and the Palm WebOS (now owned by Hewlett-Packard), all playing into an increasingly mo

Moments after Steve Jobs announced the new Apple TV yesterday, I sent out a status update that said, "Time to pre-order the new Apple TV. DLNA needs to worry, right freakin' now. And I'm a HUGE DLNA fan." I made it nearly an entire minute before my phone rang; that call was shortly interrupted by another, followed by a slew of e-mails, tweets, and Facebook comments. Pretty much everyone wanted to know, what the heck did I mean? The more I thought about it, the more I decided that the best response DLNA could make is in the form of a press release. So, here we go--the release *I* might write if I were in a position to do so: DLNA Welcomes Apple to the Living Room, Congratulates Apple on Decision to Enable Content Enjoyment in a

Today, Cisco announced their intent to acquire San Francisco based Arch Rock. With this acquisition, Cisco will be able to extend their reach into smart-metering systems that buttress smart-grid applications. Smart-grid appliances are capable of communicating with power distribution centers in order to regulate their power intake, save money, and reduce waste electricity. From Cisco's statement: "Arch Rock's wireless mesh technology enhances Cisco's IP-based, end-to-end smart-grid offerings," said Laura Ipsen, senior vice president and general manager of Cisco's Smart Grid business unit. "This acquisition further positions Cisco as a strategic partner to utilities working to better manage power supply and demand, improve the security

No sooner had we posted this morning on the offer / counter-offer bidding war between Dell and HP for the ownership of 3PAR that the Financial Times began reporting that the war was over, and HP walked away the winner. Hewlett-Packard appeared to have won the bidding battle for data storage technology company 3Par on Thursday, after Dell said it would not raise its offer and was ending talks. I spoke with John Furrier briefly before he went on the air this morning at VMworld on #theCube, and he took great joy in pointing out that he was on record predicting the outcome of the auction. “HP wins big here, mainly because 3PAR’s technology looks is set to become an essential piece of HP’s thin provisioning segment,” said John. �

It’s been eighteen days since the bidding war over 3Par began, and we’re wondering if there’s even an end in sight. 3Par released a statement this morning saying that HP raised its bid again, to $33 per share. That’s an increase from its previously announced offer of $30 per share. This “Superior Proposal” aims to woo 3Par as far away from Dell’s initial acquisition offering as it can, with the terms of agreement allowing the server company to entertain other offers. That’s exactly what 3Par has been doing, stretching this bidding war out for nearly three weeks. Back in August, John Furrier predicted 3PAR bidding would exceed $2 Billion, and predicted back in May that storage would be the next hot market to watch for merg

The deadline for the 3Par bid is nearing, and speculation is bubbling around whether or not Dell will make a last raise on its bid to acquire the company. HP had started a bidding war for 3Par, when it topped Dell’s initial bid of $18 per share earlier this month. Early predictions have put HP in the lead. The bidding war has been the running tech soap opera drama to play out over the past few weeks, with 3Par seeming to sit quite comfortably in the middle of it all. 3Par’s terms of agreement Dell, the computer manufacturer was allotted three days, beginning Monday, to determine what it’s next move would be. With HP’s latest offer of $2 billion ($30 per share), Dell will have to devote a hefty sum to acquire 3Par. Interesti

Novell’s made a joint announcement with VMware at the VMworld 2010 conference today in San Francisco,  delivering SUSE Linux Enterprise Server features to its wide array of clients.  Novell stopped by TheCUBE to make the announcement, which was streamed live at SiliconANGLE.tv.  This marks the first of several steps the companies will be taking in their expanded partnerships, first announced in June. With the new server solutions, Novell and VMware strive to reduce IT complexity, accelerating customer’s journey towards a fully-virtualized datacenter.  To do so, the SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for VMware focuses on its broad application support, boasting nearly 6,000 application certifications.  The partnership will bring the op

Virtualization leader VMware has purchased Integrien, a monitoring company based in Irvine California.  From the company’s website: “Thru advanced analytics Integrien stands alone in it’s ability to leverage existing monitoring infrastructures to solve performance problems. Listed below is only a short list of the benefits our customers enjoy after deploying Alive. Make sure to review the specific details associated with each solution.” All of Integrien’s employees, (80) have accepted jobs at VMware. The the two companies had already been working together, as Integrien announced the  launch of its AliveVM monitoring product for VMware administrators on August 31.