April 23, 2002
IBM invented the current hard drive technology we now use back in the 1950’s. At that time the platters were about 2 feet in diameter and the capacity was miniscule. Since that time IBM has been the leader in hard drive technology reducing size and increasing capacity. In the first quarter of this year IBM announced sales were off by 29% from the same time last year. Overall their hard drive division has lost millions of dollars. Recently IBM sold its hard drive technology division to Hitachi. This is the first so-called merger of its kind. IBM and Hitachi employees will join together to continue producing hard drives and furthering the technology. Hopefully this will be a good move for the industry. Sit back and watch the drama unfold.
The newsletter a few weeks ago regarding the Net Integrator brought a lot of attention. Since that time I have had a chance to plug one of these things in and watch it work. Impressive is an understatement. We opened it up to peek inside and the guts of this thing are very simple. However, don’t judge a book by the cover. Actually the cover is more impressive than the inside. (More on that below) The one thing that caught my attention first is that there is no video interface, just 3 NICS. You plug this thing into your network and it will automatically configure after pushing a few buttons on the front panel. The Unix O/S has been configured to do all the work. It has the ability to detect all other systems on your network and it won’t conflict with them i.e. if you are running DHCP it will turn off that feature so not to conflict with the existing service. All user interface is done through your browser after the server assigns itself an IP address to mate with your existing network. I wouldn’t be surprised if this think started talking and said “Do not disassemble Johnny 5. Johnny 5 Alive!”
Drop this thing off at any client with a server need. Leave it for 30 days. Tell them if they don’t like it after 30 days you will take it back. No one has rejected it based on the performance. Please read the review links below.
Please note that we are the distributor for Net Integration in the Rocky Mountain Region. If you are an existing S&K Customer, or you are located in this region, you will need to contact us to purchase this product. Some of you have contacted NITI directly and you were told to contact us. You will pay the same price regardless of where you purchase.
Regarding last week’s newsletter. I asked that you don’t email me with your rebuttals about how much you love Win 98 and how much you want to keep selling it. I received several emails stating just that. Just keep a few facts in mind please: I don’t produce the software and I don’t decide when to discontinue the software. I only sell the stuff and I have my own opinions about its stability. Microsoft has compiled data to prove that companies that don’t promote the latest operating systems sales fall behind by a large margin. Don’t shoot the messenger!
S&K