IBM and Hewlett-Packard announced new server customers this week in deals that illustrate the companies' divergent views of the server market. Reflecting HP's "industry-standard" server initiative, Greater Baltimore Medical Center and clothing maker Perry Ellis each bought Intel-based ProLiant servers from HP. Perry Ellis bought two four-processor ProLiant DL580 G2 servers to consolidate several databases. GBMC bought a rack full of ProLiant BL20p blade servers, running Citrix Systems software and other programs, that will replace three racks of servers.
Meanwhile, IBM announced that Softbank Uway in Korea bought one of its new z990 mainframes, a system at the other end of the spectrum of power and expense to most Intel servers. The mainframe, which will run Linux, will replace 45 HP and Sun servers in handling processing chores for online university applications.