Mark Hachman

SANTA CLARA, Calif.—The Diskcon show here was all about small: small devices, small attendance, small profits. Changes in this industry arrive slowly, and some attendees grumbled that its time to starting holding the show once every two years instead. Last year, the show was held in the San Jose Fairmont and Convention Center, and the […]

SANTA CLARA, Calif.—A hardware designer for Microsoft Corp.s Portable Media Player team said that by 2007 the players would be designed with at least 125GB of storage capacity. The recently introduced players will also be designed to record and download high-definition as well as standard-definition video, said David Proctor, hardware lead for the Microsoft Portable […]

SANTA CLARA, Calif.—The disk-drive industry faces a dilemma: It should be thriving, but its not. But while analysts say the industry would be better off with fewer competitors, none seems ready to throw in the towel. That hasnt stopped drive makers from pointing fingers at one another. In fact, analysts say thats part of the […]

Chip maker National Semiconductor Inc. is rolling out hardware devices designed to make desktop and laptop PCs more secure. The Santa Clara, Calif., company on Thursday introduced its SafeKeeper Trusted I/O products that enable users to store a computers identity on a piece of silicon, rather than relying on software to protect it. Putting the […]

Maxell said Tuesday that it believes rising costs and shrinking margins will make a price increase “inevitable” on all magnetic tape products. The company is evaluating when to hike prices, by how much and for which products, Don Patrican, executive vice president at Maxell, said in an interview. Maxell Corp. of America, based in Fairlawn, […]

On Monday, Transitive Corp. formally unwrapped its “hardware virtualization” technology, which allows software written for one processor to run on another platform. The technology will be adopted and deployed by an undisclosed computer OEM in the fourth quarter, company executives said, and five more manufacturers are expected to announce support for the technology next year. […]

SAN FRANCISCO—Sun Microsystems Inc. this month will roll out two new servers featuring its UltraSPARC IV processors, a Sun executive said Friday. The new systems will replace the current four-way Sun Fire V480 and eight-way V880 systems, which currently run UltraSPARC III, Andy Ingram, vice president of marketing for Suns Scalable Systems Group, told reporters […]

Advanced Micro Devices Inc. is countering Intels “Silvervale” virtualization technology with its own initiative, executives said late Wednesday. “Pacifica” is being internally developed within AMD as an “advanced virtualization” technology, said Ben Williams, vice president of the enterprise workstation business at AMD, in an interview. At the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco, Intel executives […]

SAN FRANCISCO—The enterprise processor contest is now a two-horse race between IBM and Intel Corp., Intels enterprise platforms chief said Tuesday. In a briefing with reporters at the Intel Developer Forum here, Abhi Talwalkar, vice president of Intels Enterprise Platforms Group, in Santa Clara, Calif., said in the future only IBMs Power5 architecture and Intels […]

SAN FRANCISCO—Intel will move forward on its Centrino wireless solution with “Napa,” executives said Wednesday. The company also demonstrated its first desktop dual-core chip running on an Intel 915 motherboard at the Intel Developer Forum here. Although desktop processors have been the focus of past IDF confabs, the focus here Wednesday turned to mobility, with […]